Shots in the Dark
by HappyLeifEricsonDay
Summary: Series of one-shots. Ranging from show-era into the future. - Latest updates: "Hide and Seek" - He's hiding. Waiting. He can hear them searching, but he won't be found. / "Wanderer" - She's been from Antarctica to the Asteroid Belt, but human relationships still confuse her. / "Hunter" - Danny returns to a city pursuing his next target and meets someone new.
1. Table of Contents

So this is going to be a series of one-shots regarding Danny and co. Dunno when they'll be posted or how many or how varied the lengths will be, but I'll post them as I write them.

**P.S.** Sometimes it is _so hard_ to write summaries and genres for these short stories! Because a lot of them have twists but like if I put 'angst' as the genre instead of 'romance' then you will see the twist coming but I don't want to mislead anyone by calling it 'romance'? DO YOU SEE MY QUANDARY? Bahh. Also sometimes surprise characters and I don't always want to list them and give it away?

* * *

**Shots in the Dark**

x - x - x

**1. [Table of Contents]**

**2. Home - **Sam wakes up to a surprise.

(K+ Romance) Danny, Sam

**3. Test** - Sam gets a helping hand.

(K+ Romance) Danny, Sam

**4. Bathwater** - Something is wrong with the water in Sam's bath..

(T Romance) Danny, Sam

**5. A Job to Do -** Danny pays a visit to the academic adviser.

(K+ General) Danny

**6. Midnight Movie Premiere** - Danny is dragged to see a new movie. And it's not just _any _movie.

(K+ Friendship/Romance) Danny, Tucker, Sam

**7. Showing Her - **Danny needs to show Valerie a new ability of his.

(T Drama/Friendship) Danny, Valerie

**8. The Search** - The aftermath when 'Control Freaks' ended very differently.

(T Dark?/Romance?/Horror?) Danny, Sam

**9. Flashlight -** Sleeping at proper hours has never been Danny's forte.

(K+ General/Humor) Danny

**10. Secret** - Jazz wants to know what it is that Danny's hiding.

(K+ Family/Drama/Humor) Jazz, Danny

**11. Fist Fights** - When the bullying finally ends for Danny, there's still one guy who just won't give it up.

(T Drama/Friendship) Danny, Dash

**12. Blocks -** Something strange is up with Ramona's toy blocks.

(K+ Family/Humor) OC, Danny

**13. Theory** - Sam has a theory, and she wants to test it.

(T Romance/Humor) Sam, Danny

**14. Portals** - Danny learns something shocking about the nature of his existence.

(T Drama/Angst) Danny, Dani, Vlad

**15. Prompt **- Lancer's weekly writing prompt gets an interesting response from his most interesting student.

(K+ Drama/Friendship) Lancer, Danny

**16. Tangible** - Danny's struggles with controlling his intangibility get him wondering.. what if?

(T Humor/Angst/Friendship) Danny, Tucker, Sam

**17. My Old Friend** - 'Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again.'

(K+ Adventure/Friendship) Danny, Sam, Tucker

**18. Blood** - Danny's a bit disoriented when he comes to Sam's room bleeding late one night.

(T Friendship/Romance) Danny, Sam

**19. Typo **- Danny's exhaustion comes back to bite him, but not as hard as it might've.

(K+ General) Lancer, Danny

**20. Stranger **- Danny's venting frustration when he meets a stranger out in the woods.

(T Angst/Friendship) Danny

**21. Hide and Seek** - He's hiding. Waiting. He can hear them searching, but he won't be found.

(T Drama) Danny

**22. Wanderer** - She's been from Antarctica to the Asteroid Belt, but human relationships still confound her.

(K+ Family/Adventure) Dani, Danny

**23. Hunter** - Danny returns to a city pursuing his next target and meets someone new.

(T Adventure) Danny, Surprise, Surprise!


	2. Home

Timeframe: End of freshman - beginning of sophomore year of college.

* * *

**Home**

x - x - x

There was a certain way of doing things when you were a couple. You officially ask someone to date you, you officially have a first date, you officially have a first kiss, you officially move in together… yada yada, on and on. The point is that when it comes to dating there was like a certain set of unspoken rules. But then again, when had they ever followed rules? Especially _those_ rules? So far it seemed they had broken every one. So she didn't know why she expected this one to be any different.

Sam opened her eyes and saw that it was still very dark. The waxing moon showed in the crack between her black drapes. The green numbers on her digital alarm clock blinked 2:27am rhythmically. Her room was very quiet. So she was beginning to wonder what had woken her up when she heard a deep intake of breath next to her, followed by a slow exhale.

Apparently sometime in the night, Danny had crawled into her bed.

His messy black hair spilled over the pillow like a wild animal's, and from the nasty cut stretching from his brow to his jawline you'd think maybe he was a wild animal. Seeing that fresh cut made her a more than a little angry. If that turned into a scar some ghost was going to have hell to pay from one pissed off girlfriend.

He'd only made it halfway under her blanket before passing out apparently. One of his legs hung off the edge of the bed, one arm rested on his chest, and the other was thrown haphazardly behind his head. His mouth hung wide open as he breathed deeply in his sleep. She bit back a laugh at the sight of him.

Sam had been living in this apartment for a year and Danny was starting to spend more time here than he did at his own home. Sometimes he slept over, but it was usually on accident. Usually, he at least tried to make it back home, even if it was in the early hours of the morning. He said it was easier on his parents, whose worry about Danny's ghost fighting was never-ending. They always worried themselves sick if he stayed out all night. So Sam was used to falling asleep next to him and waking up sometime in the night or the morning to find that he had gone.

So it was kind of surprising in a really pleasant way to wake up and find him sleeping in her bed, as though he lived here and that was just normal.

She scooted closer to him under the blanket and nudged her head up under the arm resting on his chest, letting it fall behind her so she could take its place. His body was very cold but that never bothered her these days. Her cheek pressed up against his bare chest and she wrapped her arm around his stomach.

Then she felt his limp arm tighten around her. Whoops, she didn't mean to actually wake him up. Danny didn't exactly get a good night's sleep very often.

"Mmmmsammy," he mumbled sleepily, reaching his other arm around her and squeezing tight.

"Hi sleepy," she whispered through the dark. She thought about asking him what he was doing here, but he answered her anyway before she could voice the thought.

"Skulker. Chased'mm… all'rrround town. Or.. chased me. Y'know." His words were garbled with exhaustion. "But ahh gotmm.. thermos.."

She wanted to ask why he came here instead of flying home. But she didn't. She made a mental note to make sure Skulker did some extra time rotting in the thermos before they released him back into the Ghost Zone. For that cut he gave Danny obviously.

Danny's slow heaving breaths told her he'd passed out once more. She fell asleep to the rhythm of his breathing.

In the morning when she woke he was gone.

But when she went into the kitchen to grab a bite to eat he was smiling at her through a mouthful of cereal. Sam couldn't help grinning as she joined him at the table.

So yeah, maybe Danny never gave the official 'I propose we move in together' boyfriend speech that boyfriends are 'supposed' to give. Maybe it happened more gradually, like the way they fell in love.

Maybe it was official on the day he just came straight to her apartment after work instead of making a show of going home first. Maybe it was official on the day he left all his laundry in her dryer. Maybe it was official the day she came home to find him unloading bags of groceries into her fridge. Well, _their_ fridge.

Who gives a shit about conventionality anyways?


	3. Test

Timeframe: Fall semester of sophomore year of college.

* * *

**Test**

x - x - x

Sam drained the last of the coffee from her travel mug and set it back down on the desk. It was gone too soon. The caffeine hadn't even made a dent in her sleepiness yet. Her eyelids felt so heavy. It was only with great, great effort that she was able to keep them from closing. The words on the page in front of her blurred together. _What I wouldn't give to be anywhere else right now._

She glanced at the clock at the front of the classroom and got a rude awakening. Five minutes had already passed since Professor Cranston had passed out the exam, five precious minutes of time that she'd wasted spacing out at her paper like an idiot. There were only forty-five left in the class now.

One quick glance around the room told her everyone else was beginning to turn to the second page. Shit, shit, shit, how were they answering the questions so quickly?

Resolving to focus, she took another look at question one.

_"Please choose the most correct answer._

Hubble's constant is:

a. the magnitude of the gravitational attraction between superclusters of galaxies.

b. one of the most important constants found in general relativity.

c. the relationship between mass and luminosity for main sequence stars.

d. the slope of the straight-line velocity-distance relation for galaxies in the Hubble law."

She felt like her brain was melting out of her ears. When the fuck did they learn this?

_That's a stupid question,_ she remarked internally. It was probably in one of the oh, five or six lectures she had missed, or maybe in one of the hundred pages of reading she hadn't been able to keep up with since the last exam.

Okay, well maybe he just put the hardest questions first.

She flipped to the third page of the exam and swore internally. The question at the top of the page was even worse.

"The spiral-density-wave theory:

a. postulates that expanding compressional waves spread out from the centers of spiral galaxies, and where interstellar matter encounters these compressional waves, it is compressed, which in turn initiates star formation.

b. states that a newly formed star, or protostar, first appears on the H-R diagram as a bright, cool object in the red-giant region…"

She didn't even bother reading all the choices. Well, that was that. She was going to fail this test, fail this class, hell maybe she was going to fail out of college.

Normally Sam had outstanding grades. She tried hard, dammit. She did her homework and she studied and she usually did well- like A's and B's well. But this stupid class had nothing at all to do with her major. When would she ever need to know spiral-density-wave theory in journalism? It was a joke that they required everyone to take these random general education classes regardless of their majors. So, here she was. And she had actually been trying to pass- after all she needed the credit to graduate.

But these past two weeks had been complete hell.

Technus had managed to get his hands on one of the Fenton's bazookas- the ones that sucked ghosts back into the ghost zone by opening temporary portals and sucking them in. Only he freaking reversed it. And then he went on a psycho-ghost-release spree and let about a hundred ghosts out of the ghost zone into Amity Park and the surrounding county.

So yeah, Sam could have been studying these past two weeks. What, and leave them short-handed? Yeah, not gonna happen. Especially since it turned out letting out a massive amount of ghosts was Technus' idea of a distraction while he went after a major electronics chain a few cities over. Danny had given him the beating of a lifetime for that escapade, just yesterday actually. Anyway, some things were more important than good grades. But when she stared at the questions in front of her, so out of her comprehension that it was like a foreign language, she sorely wished she had had time to study.

She turned back to the front page and looked at question two. What the hell was the difference between a pulsar and a quasar anyway? She rested her cheek on her hand, sighing passionately. _I bet Danny would know._ Who was she kidding, of _course_ Danny would know. He'd taken every astronomy class he could get his glowing hands on since they started college.

Thinking she was going to regret it, she stole a look at the clock again. It had been eleven minutes since class had started! Oh man oh man oh man-

Woah. Sam blinked. That was weird. Her brain had kind of blacked out for a second. Seriously, what just happened? Her hand, which had just been holding her pencil, was now flat on the desk.

"Psst."

Sam whipped her head around. The whisper had come from directly next to her ear. Other than that the room was dead silent, but for the sound of a hundred scratching pencils on paper.

The corner of her paper flipped up suddenly as though a drift of wind had caught it. She peered at it and realized there was something scrawled in pencil at the top of her test.

_'Hey it's me. Need some help?'_

Well that explained it.

She wrote underneath his handwriting: '_Ew, did you just overshadow me? You know I hate that.'_

She was blinking again, and once again her arms had moved. That was such a freaky feeling. Like a couple seconds had dropped out of her memory.

There was another message on her paper. '_Sorry, I know. It's the only way I can help you. Looked like you may need it.'_

She tapped her pencil against her cheek thoughtfully. Instinctively she wanted to glance around, even though she knew she wouldn't see him, wherever he was floating. She wrote: '_I thought we agreed cheating on tests was… bad.' _

She didn't want to elaborate, but she knew Danny would understand what she was getting at.

A minute passed before he answered.

She shook her head as she came back to her senses and looked at the paper.

_'The balance of the world doesn't hang on every test. Don't worry. Besides, if you turn evil the only one who's going to suffer your wrath is me.' _After that he'd penned in a little winky face.

_Oh very cute, Danny, _she thought sarcastically.

She could feel a butterfly of panic though. The clock now said fifteen after, which meant she only had half an hour left to take this test that she knew nothing about.

Reluctantly (she _hated_ cheating) she wrote back at the top of the page: _'Okay okay, just please answer at least a couple wrong so I don't raise suspicion. I never come to class after all.'_

This time when Sam's vision swam back into focus all the messages at the top of the page had been erased. In their place was just a smiley face. The clock said- _WOAH_, the clock said three minutes left in class! Shit! But one cursory glance at her exam and the panic evaporated. Every question had an answer bubbled in. Danny was a _saint._

She bounded down the aisle and dropped her exam on the professor's desk. He smiled and thanked her, and Sam almost felt bad for cheating. But then she exited the classroom and saw Danny leaning against the opposite wall, waiting for her.

His messy hair fell in his eyes, his hands were tucked in his pockets, one was foot propped up behind him on the wall. His red button up shirt hugged his arms very nicely. In so many ways he looked so much the same as the day they met back in seventh grade. She thought it was probably that dorky smile of his. He was so sincere. But since sophomore year he'd shot up in height (I mean who didn't see that coming, with his Godzilla of a dad) and the way he awkwardly held himself had been slowly replaced by a subtle confidence. His face lit up when she emerged from the classroom, and she felt her heart flutter.

"So," he said, taking her hand as they walked down the hall. "How was your test?"

"You know," she said shrugging. "It was pretty easy."

He sniggered. "Hope that doesn't come back to bite us in the ass."

"Hopefully not. Anyway thanks."

He squeezed her fingers. "No that was my thanks to you. I know it's not easy juggling school with ghost hunting. I know from experience." He chuckled.

"You exposed me to a whole new realm of danger, though," she said sinisterly. "Do you know how much self-control it's going to take to force myself to study when I know I have you as a fall-back?"

"Well… I could always take your midterm too. And your final, if you wanted." He flashed her that sneaky grin of his.

"Danny!" she said, shoving him playfully.

"What?" he replied innocently. "It's not like you need this class. You're only taking it for the credit, right?"

"Right…"

"So what's the problem? If you let me help you out then we can free up your study time for funner activities."

"Like…" she raised an eyebrow at him expectantly. Of course that'd be the first thing on his mind. _Should've never let him do_ _you a favor,_ she thought amusedly. He was such a boy.

"I don't know…" He glanced at a group of passing sorority girls wearing matching shirts, and Sam didn't fail to notice how every one of them checked Danny out before glancing at Sam in annoyance. "Drink Starbucks," he said, making fun of the passing girls who had each held a disposable coffee cup. _(Way to help screw the environment.) _"Maybe toss a Frisbee back and forth," Danny added as they passed the courtyard where a bunch of bros were running after a flying red disc. "I dunno, what do normal college kids even do?"

"Oh shut up," she joked, looping her arm through his as they walked into the parking lot.


	4. Bathwater

Timeline: Sometime just after college.

* * *

**Bathwater**

x - x - x

Sam relaxed slowly into the warm bathwater, sighing contentedly. There was nothing better after a stressful day at work than a hot bath. She sank down until the only thing above the surface of the water was the top half of her head. Her eyelids fluttered shut.

Her nose rested just above the surface, and she sniffed the soft aroma coming off of the water. She'd tossed a muslin bag of dried herbs that some clerk down at the herb shop recommended to her. It was supposed to be refreshing and relaxing or something. Chamomile, sage, mugwort, and some others. Maybe it wouldn't work like a charm but it sure did smell great.

If she hadn't been wearing that infernal necklace she would have noticed sooner. As it was, she didn't feel the ice creeping in around her feet until she could no longer move them. Her eyes shot open in alarm when she found she couldn't move her legs, but the alarm lessened when she saw it was just ice. It didn't freeze her as it would have any other person.

Even still, Sam tried to yank her legs away in annoyance but they were stuck fast. She glared as the ice traveled from one end of the tub to the other, slowly encasing her legs, then her chest, then her arms. The only parts that escaped quickly enough was her head and her fore arms, which stuck half out of the surface of ice. She tried to wiggle but it was no use. She was basically a bathtub popsicle now.

"Danny!" she growled at the empty bathroom air. It _better _be Danny, at least.

He materialized before her, laying stomach down on the flat surface of ice, resting his chin on his hands as he stared innocently into her eyes. She gave him her most menacing glare.

"Hey Sammy," Danny said, with ironic sweetness. He flashed her a goofy smile.

"Can I help you?" she spat at him. She did _not _like this, even if the cold didn't hurt her. She'd been having a perfectly lovely bath!

"Just wanted to say how much I love you," he replied, tucking a wet strand of hair behind her ear and planting a kiss on her lips.

This would be sweet, except Sam knew that overly sweet tone of voice. He wanted something.

"I would think you were coming onto me," Sam said dryly, "but this would be the least effective way to do it since most of my body is trapped in a glacier. So, what do you want?"

"I'm hurt," he said, feigning a frown. "I don't _want _anything."

"Bull," Sam retorted. "I can hear it in your tone, mister."

His lips twitched into a wry smile, and leaned lazily on one hand while he toyed absently with the dripping strands of her hair. "I just needed to tell you something, is all."

"And you needed to freeze me solid to do it?"

Where was this going, exactly?

His wide eyes met hers and for a moment he looked almost… guilty. "Well.." he said slowly. "I thought it would give you some time to... cool down after I told you."

"Oh, ha ha," she said without humor at his stupid ice pun. "What is it? Something so bad you're afraid I was going to attack you when I found out so you took precautions? Now I'm _really _worried."

Danny glanced at her uncertainly for a moment, then went back to focusing on the strands of wet black hair that he was playing with. He was chewing on his lower lip. Wow, it must be something really bad.

"Tell me!" she seethed.

"I uh…" he flinched. "I wrecked the car."

It took a moment for that to sink in. "You _what? AGAIN?" _

"It was an accident!" he burst. "Look it wasn't my fault, it was _Technus, _we were fighting and he.."

Sam wasn't listening. It was a good thing he had frozen her otherwise she _would _be attacking him. "When I get out of here your ass is going to be so sorry!"

At least he had the decency to look properly ashamed of himself as she screamed at him.


	5. A Job to Do

Timeframe: End of summer. Just before beginning of junior year of college.

* * *

**A Job To Do**

x - x - x

Rm. 202 – _Student Counseling_

Danny sighed resignedly and pushed through the door. There was almost nothing about university that he hated more than meeting with the academic counselor.

The student manning the front desk looked like he wanted to be there even less than Danny did. He found Danny's name on the list and directed him to down a hallway to a door covered in posters of various Disney movies. Oh great. _This should be fun._

"Hello uh… Daniel," she finished after a quick glance at her computer screen.

The card on her desk read Ms. Newman. The woman was short and plump and wore thick-rimmed glasses that made her look vaguely like a beetle dressed in a fluorescent pink dress. Ew.

"Hi," Danny replied without enthusiasm. He slumped down into the chair facing Ms. Newman's desk. "And it's Danny. Not Daniel."

"It says here you're in today to submit a change of major request, is this correct?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"Have you filled out the form already?"

"Yep." He pulled the folded paper out of his back pocket. She unfolded it gingerly. He almost felt bad for how crinkled the paper was as she tried vainly to flatten it out.

"International Diplomacy? That's a very interesting choice."

Danny shrugged.

Ms. Newman looked at him calculatingly for a moment. "This is your fifth change of major so far."

Danny shrugged again. Was she about to lecture him? Because that is _so _not what he needed right now. He had already had two weeks of sleepless nights trying to make this decision.

Ms. Newman clicked around on her computer screen. "Aerospace Engineering. Your grades the first semester of your freshman year seemed decent enough. After you started taking purely online classes for your second semester you were pulling straight A's. So why did you switch majors your sophomore year?"

Danny shrugged again. Ms. Newman pursed her lips. He hoped she got the idea fast that he wasn't about to spill his life story to her.

"Hmm. Danny Fenton. Your parents are _the _Fentons, am I correct?"

"Yeah. That's them." He didn't really like where this was going.

"I suppose it makes sense why you decided to switch to Paranormal Studies then. Following the family business?"

Danny shoved his hands in his pockets, determined to look anywhere in her office except her. _Would you stop staring at me? _he thought venomously at her. The inside of her office was covered floor-to-ceiling in Disney posters as well. _How old is she, twelve? _he wondered. "Something like that," he answered.

"Hmm." She was still pondering over her computer screen. He didn't like that she was staring at his course history and transcript like it was an interesting magazine article. "But then you changed your major three more times that year. Aerospace again, then Political Science, then back to Paranormal Studies. It seems you couldn't make up your mind."

"Something like that."

They stared at each other for a moment, eyes narrowed, like two cats circling with their backs arched.

"Daniel, my job as a counselor is to help you along your academic path. I'm only trying to get an understanding of what you want out of your college education."

Did she really just call him Daniel again?Why did people seem to think Danny would take them more seriously if they called him Daniel? _Honestly_. "All I want right now is to change my major."

"To International Diplomacy."

"Yes."

"It's a very... surprising major change, to say the least. Might I ask why you've developed a sudden interest?"

"It's not a sudden interest," he said heatedly. She said it as though it was a passing fancy, like a craving for ice cream or something. "It's just something I finally made up my mind about."

"Well, with all the changes you've made so far you're already quite behind in classes. You've taken a very wide variety of courses but not many credits that will count toward one degree. In short, you're on track to become a jack of all trades and master of none."

Danny tried not to glare at her. Did she think he didn't _realize _that?

"I only want to make sure that you know what you're doing, changing your major this late in the game."

_Duh_. He knew that changing his major, yet again, as incoming junior was stupid. Especially when he only had a few courses pertaining to that degree under his belt so far. It almost made him sick to think that most of the classes he'd taken so far were wasted. He'd learned so much, but now he was only angry at himself that it had taken him so long to set those things aside.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see her computer screen. The first two semesters were full of the best classes he had ever taken. For the first time in his life, school had become _fun. _

But some things in life were more important than fun, and some things were worth sacrificing for. Danny had learned that a long, long time ago. Which is why he was so angry with himself for flip flopping so hard on his major. He should have seen it from the beginning, where he would inevitably end up. Then he wouldn't have wasted his time pretending things could be different. Freshman year was a dream come true, but it was a dream he'd needed to snap himself out of.

Sophomore year was… explorational. He really thought what he needed was Paranormal Studies. That's why he gave up Aerospace – he was relinquishing Fenton's career path to pursue Phantom's. But the first month was hell. They didn't offer the Paranormal Studies classes online like they had with Aerospace, so he had to start actually going to class again. That was part of the problem. He'd become so dependent on the flexible schedules of online courses that he started drowning in the rigid schedule. It was like freshman year of high school all over again.

But the worst part was the classes themselves.

The first course was the most generic thing in the world: PAR 101A – Ghosts and Ectoplasmic Entities. That was a real eye opener. And he thought the world-view on ghosts was skewed _before_. Hearing the things that were actually being taught in the curriculum, it was almost too much to bear. It was only the second week of class when he'd gotten into a heated argument with his professor in the middle of a lecture hall packed with two hundred students.

He could take misunderstandings. He could handle slightly skewed interpretations. But he couldn't accept that they were wrong even down to the very basic definitions of everything they were teaching.

After yelling at the professor that he was _wrong, _and that the G.I.W. were _not_ a credible source, and that he could take his racist curriculum and shove it up his ass, Danny had been forcibly dropped from the course. Not that he would have gone back anyway.

After that Danny went into denial for a little while. Screw the world, you know? He wanted to get his degree in Paranormal Studies because he felt the field needed him. But he couldn't do it. He'd failed every one of his essay assignments. He'd get notes back on them like "Didn't follow the assignment" or "No sources" or "You didn't read the text, did you?" Of course he didn't freaking read the text. He could have written the textbook himself!

So that was that. If the world wanted to see ghosts in that screwed up way then Danny couldn't be a part of it. He was going to do whatever the hell he wanted. And that was go work for the space program. So he went back to the subjects he knew best. Astronomy. Physics. God, it was great.

He sort of knew he was kidding himself, even at the time.

The switch to Poli Sci happened almost by accident. He never contemplated it beforehand.

He found himself scanning the course catalogue for classes on politics. He'd never had the slightest interest in politics in his life, but there he was, trying to learn about it. It had been Jazz who'd planted the seed in his brain. Whether on purpose or on accident he didn't know, but with her it was anyone's guess.

Danny had been fuming about the attitude in the Paranormal Studies department. How it was completely immoral and unethical, this and that.

Jazz had said something interesting. To her, the issue between ghosts and humans was a political one.

Danny had never thought of it like that. To him, it had always just been two clashing worlds.

His schedule was full of Aerospace classes but he'd begun sitting in invisibly on classes on politics whenever he had spare time. The content bored him to no end, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was important he learn about this stuff.

Eventually he faced the facts and dropped out of the Aerospace program. It was the hardest thing he had ever done, but he knew that following that career path was.. well, it was selfish. He had a responsibility to the world.

The political science major only lasted half a semester. By December of his sophomore year, he knew that the major was not going to be enough. Simply learning about politics was not going to bring peace between the Ghost Zone and the human world.

So he swallowed his pride and went back to the Paranormal Studies program. Jazz tried to tell him it wasn't so bad, if you took everything with a grain of salt. She was getting her bachelor's in the program herself, though she was planning on getting her master's in Psychology. She wanted to get it in Parapsychology, but the degree didn't exist. ("Yet!" Jazz always added. She'd be doing her master's thesis on parapsychology, and was hoping to herald in a new area of study.)

Danny stomached an entire semester of Paranormal Studies classes. Not all of them were as bad as that first 101 class. Some were interesting. He felt he was gaining an important perspective, learning to see ghosts in the way the rest of the world saw them. After all, you can't change someone's opinion without first understanding it.

And he couldn't kid himself anymore. He had to admit that he was there because he felt he _could _change peoples opinions. Not only that but that it was his _duty _to do so.

The world was teetering right now at the top of a slippery slope. It had been teetering ever since the incident with the asteroid. It was a pivotal time in history for the relations between the ghost and human worlds. The worlds could walk the path of ignorance, or they could walk the path of diplomacy and understanding. Danny knew that there was nobody more suited to giving them a helpful push in the correct direction than himself.

Not that anyone had ever wanted his help.

He'd been giving help since he was fourteen years old, and it was only within the past few years that he'd been shown appreciation. He was used to being an outcast in both worlds. Hated by ghosts for being half human, hated by humans who saw him as a ghost and didn't _know _he was human. He protected them all and yet most of them hated him.

Maybe in the end that's why it took him so long to get to where he was today, sitting in the advisor's office, changing his major to the only real option he ever had. He'd been reluctant to admit to himself that there was a job he needed to do, because he knew that nobody wanted him to do it.

But when had that ever stopped him from helping people before?

"Yes," he told Ms. Newman confidently, "I definitely know what I'm doing."


	6. Midnight Movie Premiere

Time frame: Freshman year of college? Sure.

* * *

**Midnight Movie Premiere**

x - x - x

"I really can't believe you convinced me to come," Danny whined at Tucker.

"I for one wouldn't miss this for the world," Sam added, handing their tickets to the scrawny youth manning the ticket booth. "I'm going to go get some popcorn."

"Candy too! Lots of candy!" Tucker called after her. "M&Ms Sam! For the love of God, bring back M&Ms!" Sam didn't show any sign she had heard him as she picked her way through the crowd.

Danny leaned against the wall, eyeing everyone around them. Premieres were premieres, and Danny had been to a lot of them when he was younger. He remembered only too well decking out in partial costume for various midnight movie premieres back in middle and high school with Sam and Tuck. But this was different, seeing everyone dressed up like this. This was freaky.

"This is going to be so stupid, Tucker."

"Yeah probably," his friend agreed, shrugging. "So what? It's gonna be funny."

"To you maybe. Don't you understand that this might have a serious effect on my public image?"

"Dude, didn't you even watch the trailers?"

Danny gave him the stink eye. "Hell no."

"Well if you had then you would realize that they completely deified you. It's a bona fide superhero movie. I don't really think anything negative could come of this."

Danny could think of at least a hundred negative things that could happen off the top of his head. But he chose to say, "Yeah well they could have at least asked permission. I could sue," he pouted.

"Um, Danny? Ghosts can't sue. And for all they know, you are one hundred percent ghost. I highly doubt they considered the legal ramifications."

That didn't make Danny feel any less annoyed. Sam returned soon with her arms exploding with popcorn and candy, still wearing the same smirk. She dumped four bags of M&Ms into Tucker's outstretched hands. Ever since the movie had been announced last summer, she hadn't shut up about how hilarious the movie was going to be. Maybe they wouldn't think it was so funny if the movie was about _them, _Danny thought.

As they walked down the hall toward Theatre 7, they passed six other rooms screening the same exact movie. It was the premiere night of the movie in most theatres in America, so nearly every screen was playing it tonight at midnight. Halfway down the hall was a giant cardboard cut-out of Danny Phantom, posing in the stereotypical three-point-stance used in every superhero poster ever. Danny rolled his eyes, but Tuck and Sam just giggled.

"You're just mad because you weren't invited to the red carpet premiere," Tucker joked.

Danny scowled.

"I wonder what the plot is even going to be," he muttered as Tuck and Sam settled in on both sides of him in three seats near the back. "How can they write a movie based around a character they know nothing about?"

Not that the movie makers hadn't tried everything possible to squeeze information from him. Danny had been trying not to think about this stupid movie ever since it was announced, but he'd had even more journalists dogging Phantom than usual, trying to get statements from him regarding the movie itself. Not only that but he had people working for the filmmakers themselves dogging him everywhere he appeared as Phantom, trying to get information to put in their movie. He almost _wanted _to give it to them, knowing whatever they did was going to be awful unless he corrected them.

Even as Fenton he'd been hounded by journalists for information, along with the rest of his family. Since they were at the head of Operation Spirit, they were prime candidates to be mined for details. It was impossible to shake them. His family all answered as best they could without revealing too much. In fact his parents were really tripping over themselves over the opportunity to share their side of things, but Danny avoided the phone calls and visits painstakingly.

What? Was he going to tell them what really happened? He couldn't give them even an inkling of the truth if he wanted to keep his secret. He was already grateful enough that no one else that was actually _there_ when it happened had spilled the juiciest bit of it. That in itself was nothing short of a miracle, and he had thanked every one of those people personally for protecting his secret.

"You _really_ might have wanted to check out the trailers beforehand," Tucker snickered. "You could have prepared yourself."

"Why?" Sam asked, leaning past Danny to raise an eyebrow at Tucker.

"You didn't watch them either?" Tucker asked.

Sam shrugged. "I wanted to be surprised."

"Oh, you're going to be surprised alright," Tucker fought back laughter. Danny didn't even want to know what was so funny to Tuck, but he knew he was about to.

A hush fell over the theater as the previews began. After five shitty trailers, the screen grew dark and heavy ominous violins began to play. The audience seemed to know that the real movie was now starting, and a cheer went up. Tucker and Sam joined in the hollering and clapping but Danny glared at the screen, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. Out of the blackness a few stars blinked into existence, and then from the top of the screen a green asteroid rolled downward until it filled the shot. It rolled away out of the picture and the camera followed it as it grew smaller as it moved with the playing violin music. As it grew more distant, the camera panned out and the image of Earth appeared beyond it, accompanied by a dramatic shift in the music.

_Gag me with a spoon, _Danny thought_. _

The asteroid rolled ominously toward the Earth and brass instruments blared over bass drums as the stars in the background grew brighter and brighter and took on the shape of letters, which soon spelled out the words _Phantom Planet. _Smaller words flashed beneath them: _Based on the true story of Danny Phantom._

Danny bit back a scoff at the words _true story_. There was no way they could be even close to what had really happened. Danny slunk down into his seat as the theater audience clapped again. Sam threaded her fingers through his on the armrest and leaned close to his ear.

"Will you relax?" she chided quietly. "Just pretend it's all a big joke, okay? That's how I get through daily life."

As the movie went on Danny wondered what the budget was. As the most anticipated movie of the year it must have been monumental, because the special effects were grudgingly realistic. And he had to hand it to them, the actor who was playing Phantom did look _kind_ of look like him.

To his surprise, after the opening sequence the timeline switched. It flashed back to two years before the asteroid ever appeared, flashing the words _Amity Park, USA._ Danny eyed Tucker, but he was avoiding Danny's gaze and smirking at the screen. Danny viewed the scene in detached wonder as he watched his fourteen-year-old self do battle with a giant meat monster. The first time Danny Phantom had ever publicly fought a ghost. He didn't think anyone had really paid attention to that. A glance at Sam to his right told Danny that she was equally as surprised.

As the movie unfolded, Danny was met with shock after shock. Somebody had _really _done their research. They must have interviewed every single resident of Amity Park to get this kind of detailed information. The reenactments of Danny's ghost fights were almost too close to reality. The only major difference was that obviously in the movie Phantom's character was a full-on ghost. And it was.. it was _weird_ to see the way they portrayed his character. It was _very _weird. They seemed to have used actual dialogue from footage of his fights from Amity's local news. Hearing his own lines come from the actor's mouth was slightly disconcerting.

And the plot itself was far too close to reality for comfort. The character Phantom's struggles were too close to the target. He watched the rise of ghost attacks in his city the same way it had actually happened, watched as Amity Park turned against him, hated him even as he saved them time and again, deemed him Public Enemy #1. Danny didn't know what he was expecting from this movie, but this wasn't it. He wasn't expecting that the director was actually going to follow the real story of Danny Phantom. At the most he was expecting an action film revolving solely around the asteroid – he never would have guessed he was walking into a biopic about his ghost-life.

But the biggest shock came at around forty minutes in. He really should have known. Should have realized that there was no such thing as a superhero movie without a love interest.

So far Phantom had been depicted as a sort of loner. An outcast from the ghosts whose "ghostly obsession" was a crippling need to protect people, at the expense of his fellow ghosts. The really weren't too far from the mark, Danny was thinking. Though the next scene was completely made up. After a bad ghost fight Danny's character lay bleeding on the ground, and suddenly a new character was introduced, accompanied by soft violins and flute music. It's painfully obvious to any moviegoer when the love interest appears on screen, and this was that moment. A shapely female ghost with short black hair and a short black dress saved Phantom from demise and healed him.

As soon as she appeared Danny choked on the gulp of Dr. Pepper he was currently swallowing. Sam's jaw dropped. Tucker covered a burst of laughter with his hands.

Looking at the uncannily familiar female ghost character, it was almost impossible to think she hadn't been based on Sam.

Danny glared at Tucker like it was his fault after he stopped choking. "What the hell?" he whispered through his teeth.

"I warned you to watch the trailers," he whispered back with a wide smirk.

"But.." He tried to phrase a sentence but couldn't. Nobody knew Phantom had friends. At least he thought so. Tucker and Sam were so careful not to be seen helping Phantom when the news cameras were rolling. So how did they know? How _could_ they know? "But…"

"It's your own fault, you know," Tucker whispered at him. "I think it's because you fly around with her so often dude. People don't see her up close but they see you're with a girl, and that's enough apparently." He snickered again. "Though I don't really think its fair that your _best _sidekick didn't make it into the movie," he pouted.

Danny took back what he said about them really doing their research. They must have been straight up _stalking _him.

Sam didn't look too amused. The girl ghost's personality couldn't have been farther from the mark. Having nothing to go on they obviously just made everything up. She was a regular Lois Lane, a Mary Jane, utterly without a strong personality. She cried when Danny went off to battle, and the real Sam huffed and crossed her arms angrily.

The second half of the movie was where Vlad and the asteroid finally came into play. Danny thought the real story was much more riveting, but they did an okay job of it. He _supposed. _To be honest the thought of actually dating the ghost girl they made out to be his love interest was gag worthy. She was just so bland. Though he at least had a good laugh at the actors playing his parents. They vastly oversimplified his parents' personalities, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't find it funny.

When Phantom was leaving for the temporary portal above the snow to gather all the ghosts for the machine, Danny found himself shocked once more. He watched himself kiss the Sam-character goodbye passionately in the snow, just like he had on that day.

"Okay how did they know _that _happened?" Danny whispered at Tucker incredulously.

"Wait, that _happened_?" Tucker said, spilling M&Ms all over Danny. Danny rolled his eyes while Tucker struggled to keep his laughter quiet. "I always wondered what happened that made you guys finally start dating after the whole asteroid thing."

"Shut up Tucker," Sam growled over Danny's shoulder.

Danny was going to punch everyone that was there that day straight in the face. That was a freaking private moment! Someone must have seen them. They all kept his _big _secret, but apparently no one had wasted any time divulging every other aspect of his life with the film crew.

Funnily enough, the big ending of the film was the unveiling of the statues Sam's grandma had commissioned of Danny Phantom upholding the globe. He'd thought it would be some cheesy scene about Phantom getting the girl, like most superhero movies. But even though they had majorly played up the ghostly love affair (that didn't freaking exist) in the end the tone seemed to imply that it wasn't a love story, it was.. something else.

As the camera panned out from Amity Park again, they replayed a monologue Phantom had near the beginning about protecting people even when they didn't want his help. And... Danny decided this movie wasn't _that_ terrible. Besides, he _did _get the girl. And the girl was way better in real life.

As the audience filed out of the theater everyone was babbling about the movie excitedly. Sam was fuming. Danny could practically see the steam rising from her ears.

Tucker was still laughing. "Man," he said, wiping away a fake tear, "you guys should see how pissed you look right now."

Danny shrugged as the made their way to the exit. "I'm not that pissed. At least I'm a superhero." He was downplaying how annoyed he was but he didn't want to give Tuck the satisfaction.

"Well _I'm _pissed off," Sam growled. "Where do they get off making up a stupid character like that? They were doing so well with the true story but then they just _had _to go add in a girl character just because it's a superhero movie and it just _has_ to have romance. She had the personality of a wad of earwax."

Tucker just smirked at her. "Sam, you do realize that character was based on you right?"

Well, apparently she hadn't. "What the hell do you mean based on me?"

Tucker chuckled again. "Well they based everything in this movie off eyewitness testimony. And I'm pretty sure there are hundreds of eyewitnesses throughout the years who've seen Phantom flying around with a dark-haired girl... I mean what did you expect people to think? People see what they want to see dude."

Sam gaped.

"You think they'll make any comics?" Danny asked hopefully, trying to steer the subject to a different topic.

"Hell yeah!" Tucker replied.

"They'll probably be just as stupid," Sam muttered.

"If you weren't a celebrity before, you will be now dude," Tucker said with reverence. "You're going down in the history books as a real live superhero."

Despite his annoyance at the movie, that actually did lift Danny's spirits. After all, they had gotten Phantom's purpose right on the dot at least, even if the details were a bit rough. That's all that mattered right?

It didn't seem so awful that they didn't know about Phantom's hardest struggles - his human ones. A part of him was sure that one day they would know. But that wouldn't be for a long time, at least he hoped.

"Hey guys?" he said, stopping in his tracks. "I'll catch up with you at the car. Gotta run to the bathroom." He left them hastily before they could reply.

He was outside the theater well before them of course, having never gone into the bathroom. He'd transformed behind a corner and flown out through the wall. When Tuck and Sam finally pushed out the front doors through the crowd he spotted them and shot them a sly grin from his place at the center of the crowd. Sam rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips, but Tucker just laughed and shook his head.

"Thanks Phantom!" a teenage girl wearing a shirt sporting his own DP logo shrieked as Danny handed back her shoe, which he had just signed his name on. Several more girls clamored forward to take her place, all shoving sharpies at him and begging him to sign stuff.

He didn't take advantage of the limelight very often, so he thought he deserved this one night. And he made sure to tell every curious fan who asked that no, the girl ghost character was _not_ real. But yes he did have a girlfriend, and she was _way _cooler. All the girls looked disappointed when he told them that (_I'm dead to you anyways,_ he thought to himself, _so why do you care?_) but it was worth it to see Sam smiling on the sidelines whenever he said it.


	7. Showing Her

Time frame: Doesn't really matter. Sometime after college.

* * *

**Showing Her**

x - x - x

Valerie's voice carried to Danny over the rushing wind. "So are you ever gonna explain what we're doing out here?"

"I will," he called back over his shoulder. "Just a bit farther!"

He heard a mechanical whirring and Valerie sped up, catching up to Danny shoulder to shoulder.

"This better be worth getting up at five am, Phantom," she drawled tiredly, but the smile she offered through her helmet visor said she didn't actually mind.

Danny slowed his flight, scanning the area surrounding them. The horizon in the distance was beginning to glow softly, a mixture of pale yellow and baby blue bleeding into the dark sky. Hundreds of feet below Danny and Valerie the vast lake spread out in every direction, a darkly glittering undulating blanket. It met the horizon at every angle. Land was out of sight.

"Okay Val, I think this is far enough." He put in a full stop.

Valerie pulled her sled up short and u-turned to come back to where Danny was floating. She glanced around. "So… you wanted to show me the middle of the lake?" she said, dripping with sarcasm. "Great surprise, Danny."

Danny rolled his eyes at her. "No, it's just that I can only show you this out here."

Valerie crossed her arms, staring at him expectantly. Her raised eyebrow said _'And…?'_

Danny took a deep breath, readying himself. He'd only done this a few times before, and he'd never shown anyone. He found himself suddenly gripped with nervousness. How would she react to this?

"Okay," he breathed. "I'm going to show you something new. It's not a new power, it's just a new way I've learned how to manipulate my powers. You _have_ to stay close to me, though. Once I set it in motion I'm going to turn us intangible. That part is _very important_." He stressed the last two words, giving her a look. The worst scenario he could think of was her freaking and flying away before he could turn her intangible. He shuddered at the very thought.

Valerie rested one arm on her hip, sizing him up. "So why are you showing _me _this?" she asked. The unspoken part of the question said _and why not Sam or Tucker?_

The answer to the second question was that he didn't want to scare the shit out of them. He didn't think she wanted to know the answer to the first. He didn't even like admitting it to himself.

"I just need to show someone I trust," he answered vaguely. And he trusted Valerie almost more than anyone else. Funny, how the years can change things.

Danny drifted downwards, making sure there was about fifteen feet of air between himself and Val. "Stay back for this part," he called up in warning.

He didn't wait for her answer before he began. His hands started to glow green in front of him as he began directing all his energy there. Soon there was a small orb of glowing green ectoplasm hovering between his palms. It grew bigger and bigger as he directed more energy there, concentrating hard on not letting any escape from the sphere.

After a minute the pulsing orb of ectoplasm was as wide as Danny's arm span, and he began to redirect all his effort into condensing it. His jaw clenched tight as he forced his hands to draw closer together again. The ectoplasm squirmed and pulsed under his hands, its molecules colliding with each other faster and faster as it became denser. Soon it was as small as a baseball, and Danny was reeling from the raw force of the energy he was containing with his bare hands. Every ounce of his being was going into holding it in place. If he slipped up now, it would be catastrophic.

It was a good thing that the ice came so naturally, since all the rest of his energy was currently in use. It was as simple as breathing out. The ice surged from his hands quickly, encasing the ectoplasmic sphere in a thick case of ice, about two feet wide around. He gasped as the energy was cut off from him abruptly, trapped deep within the ice. He gazed, entranced, at his handiwork. It looked surreal. A glowing swirling nucleus within a glittering crystal ball. It was light as a feather in his arms after all that pressure he'd just been holding.

Not for the first time, he marveled at how strong the ice was that he produced.

He afforded a quick glance at Valerie. She was gaping at him openly, her arms limp at her sides.

_If you think _that_ was nuts…_

"Remember, stay close to me," he warned, as he closed the gap in the air between them again. It's not like he thought she was going to suddenly fly away or something, but it wasn't a chance he could even remotely afford to take.

She nodded numbly. Danny took a moment to look her in the eye and savor the awe he saw there. He wasn't sure if she would ever look at him that way again. Not after this.

_Well, here goes everything. _He let the globe of ice drop from his hands.

He and Val both watched it fall for a moment, sinking like an anchor toward the waves far below. Danny gripped Valerie's arm firmly with his left hand and sent a surge of intangibility through both their bodies, making sure to extend it to her sled too. Valerie shivered as she vanished from sight.

The orb was about halfway to the surface of the water. Danny raised his right arm and summoned up a regular amount of ectoplasm. Nothing more than what he would send at the Box Ghost in a routine fight, really. He zeroed his gaze on the shrinking target, reared his arm back, and released his shot at the highest speed he could. The last time Tucker had clocked his top throwing speed it had come out to 241mph. He sent three more balls of light hurtling after the first in rapid succession, just in case the first didn't hit its mark.

He wasn't sure which throw hit the target, but one of them did.

The first thing that happened was a distant sucking noise. Like a small black hole had opened up near the surface. Then, a brilliant flash of green that lit the lake's surface for a mile around, and the foggy clouds above them too. The sound of a hurricane rushed past the two intangible friends, and Danny knew at this point if they were solid they'd be blown a thousand feet from here.

This all happened in the one second between impact and the explosion.

When the icy sphere shattered the whole lake shook.

Great billows of green and black smoke shot up like a radioactive mushroom cloud, showering the sky a torrential rain of lake water. Ripples like tidal waves cascaded from the impact point. Within moments the world was obscured from Danny's vision, and all he could see was swirling black and green, glowing and menacing. He focused on the feel of Valerie's arm firmly in his grasp, and began soaring away, out of this war zone.

If Valerie was speaking he couldn't hear her over the roar of the settling explosion. It droned in his ears like a passing freight train. He didn't stop until they were at least a mile away. Danny released Valerie from his death grip, and they both gazed behind them at what Danny had done.

The smoke billowed up from the lake into the sky, rolling over itself like a thunderous storm, green flashes crackling across its surface, dangerous green lightning flashing beneath the black smoke. The heaving water surrounding it glowed ominously. Danny cringed at that. It would go away soon, but he couldn't help but wonder how many fish he had just killed. How many birds. He wondered how many people would die if instead of the lake's surface that bomb had dropped on a city street. An apartment building. A school.

Danny couldn't bring himself to look at Valerie. He didn't want to see the expression on her face.

"Jesus, Danny," she whispered.

He kept his eyes focused on the rising smoke in the distance.

"I guess now I know why you needed to show me out here in the middle of nowhere."

A few moments of silence as they observed. A sliver of sun was now poking its head over the rim of the sea on the far horizon. The sky was soft periwinkle and golden yellow, sharply contrasting the sickening gray-green haze of the explosion.

"I'll never do that again," Danny told her firmly. He caught her eye as she turned sharply toward him.

"Um, what?" She sounded as if he had just told her a funny joke.

He needed her to understand how dead serious he was. "I'm not making one again, Val. Ever."

If her eyebrows raised any higher at him they'd lift right off her face. "So why are you showing me this at all?" she asked incredulously.

Danny hovered silently for a moment, opting to stare at her feet rather than her face. His eyes were drawn to the contraption fastened to the base of her specialized sled, the one weapon she never left home without nowadays, the only one that wasn't a part of her suit. The one that had been a gift from Danny. A small thermos.

He remembered another Valerie, hardened by the years. A Valerie who had lost almost everything because of Danny and still kept fighting. She was one of the last, and still didn't back down. He remembered the determined look in her eye when she saw Danny's face. He remembered meeting her that day. And even though everything was falling apart around him he remembered thinking that if he had just trusted her enough to give her a thermos then Valerie could have saved everyone.

"I just need you to know," he said slowly, "what I'm capable of."

_Just in case._


	8. The Search

This is an AU one shot, in which the episode 'Control Freaks' ended differently. Just read to find out.

Fair warning, this one is very dark.

_Also, this fic is very loosely inspired by the song "Lions Roar" by The Hush Sound. Please listen to it if you haven't heard it! They're the best._

* * *

**The Search**

x - x - x

The day is over as far as we're concerned. The last act finished with a grand show of lights. Lots of smoke. Bang, pow, cheers from the crowds. They stand from their seats and stomp their feet. They loved us, of course. Humans are strange. The noise continues when we disappear from the stage. They're chattering to one another. Some nights I slip amongst them invisibly and observe them talking about us in awe. They think we're remarkable. They might not think so if they knew what we really were.

Humans are strange.

Some nights Master calls for us after the show. When he calls it comes like a soft siren in the back of my head. I follow it when I hear it, and more often than not it means that Master has a task for us. They vary greatly. The others and I have retrieved a great many gifts for the Master. I don't know what he does with them, and have no cause to wonder or care.

I simply perform in the show, come when he calls, and then take my place in the tent with the others until the next show.

But often there is no task to complete after a show. Master sends us away while he does work of his own.

On these nights I simply wander. And the other ghosts seem as lost as I am on these nights.

Tonight as I amble behind the tent I watch the ghost with spiky hair hovering in place, staring at a spot on the ground. For ten minutes she doesn't move, and then she abruptly flies away, only to stop and stare at another patch of dirt.

We are all lost when no tasks are forthcoming from the Master.

I float invisibly back through the main tent and to the front, where patrons are pouring out into the night, talking and laughing amongst themselves. Watching them interact helps relieve some of the aching emptiness left when I can't feel the Master's influence.

Sometimes I interact with them too. I'm not supposed to, and the Master is angry when he happens to notice. The humans are not supposed to know we're ghosts, he hisses at me. But when Master leaves us alone there is nothing stopping me from doing so. I become aimless, and I cannot help it when my focus is attracted by one of the humans. They fascinate me, in all their foreignness. I cannot understand them.

I have developed a habit. A bad one. On some level I know that if the Master caught me I would be punished. Right and wrong have no meaning for me; it's only what the Master wants and what he doesn't. So my doubts about my habit have only to do with my unwillingness to be caught by him.

It began with curiosity.

The thing that fascinates me about humans is their emotional spectrum. Right now I watch as a human girl shouts something and slugs a boy in the shoulder. I expect him to become hostile, but he laughs and grabs her by the arm, pulling her into an tight embrace. The girl laughs and yanks herself free, dusting off her shirt. He grins sardonically and she scowls, before allowing him to kiss her once again.

Humans sure are strange.

This terrain of emotion they're able to experience piques my curiosity. I am a ghost. Therefore, I do not have emotion. What I experience is somewhat different. I'm not sure how so, because I can't identify with the humans and so can't rate my experience based on theirs. The strongest feelings I have are when I do or don't do something that's been commanded by the Master. When I do as I'm told I get the feeling of satisfaction, and when I don't I'm pummeled with the feeling of disappointment.

But these emotions are not my own. They come from outside me. I can feel them entering my empty, silent mind and filling it, the same way the calling siren does. They come from the Master's staff, the one that I can't look away from when he holds it in his hand.

That's the difference between humans and I, I suppose. My feelings come from without, and theirs come from within.

I have only ever had one feeling come from within before. It happened twice, back in the beginning, when Master first called me.

I was performing for the first time that day, my first act being the tight rope. Master wanted me to cut the rope. I did.

But the girl that fell wasn't in on it, I guess. She screamed. It cut through the haze in my mind like lightning. Amongst the emptiness in there, something sparked. Something coming from inside my own mind. The human word for it came to me then: _fear_.

Everything was clear for a moment, and everything else was vanished as I responded single-mindedly to the fear. I think I caught the girl before she landed, though I don't know why.

Later that night, after the show, I was standing atop a train. That same girl was there. She had dark hair, and wide eyes. She was yelling things at me, and so was the Master. Everything collided in my brain and I couldn't make sense of it. All I knew was that the staff was in my hands. The shining red of it blinded me to everything else.

And then, the girl screamed out again. Through the haze of the blinding red I saw her fall from the edge of the train. Her eyes met mine as she went. The fear cut through me, radiating from my mind to my feet. But I couldn't make sense of it. The staff blinded me. The yell faded, like we were leaving her far, far behind. I closed my eyes, trying to shake the fear. I didn't want it. I didn't know what it was.

_I am a ghost, _I thought, _and ghosts have no emotions._

How ironic it is that now I spend my free time seeking to feel that way again. My very bad habit.

I choose a girl that leans against the outer gate alone. Maybe she's waiting for someone. Her eyes scan the crowd expectantly.

The reason I pick her is because her hair is short and dark. I always pick ones with short, dark hair. Maybe I think it will help. That it's the key. It hasn't ever helped before but I stick to my routine anyway. This one's wearing a black shirt. I consider that a plus. That first girl wore a black shirt too, I think.

She doesn't have time to cry out as I grab her by the shoulders and twist her away from the dark corner into intangibility, rising higher and higher in the air. I am swift. It's only after we are already fifty feet from the ground that she begins to scream. I listen to her cry with slight interest. But I feel nothing.

Soon the array of glowing tents are far behind us. The vast desert is dark blue under the sparkling of the Milky Way. A few trees and bushes are scattered like bugs, but the ground far below is mostly just dirt for miles and miles.

The girl is no longer twisting in my arms, but instead clutches at me desperately, staring at the ground below.

When we are far enough from the circus – it is only small candles on the horizon now – I look at her eyes. They are wide. That's good.

I let her go.

She screams as she falls, staring up at me.

I watch her eyes, waiting.

Listen to her fading voice, waiting.

And I feel nothing.

She's gone.

If I could feel disappointment I know I would be feeling it as I return to my own tent. Night after night, girl after girl. None of them able to draw out of me that emotion I'm so desperately seeking.

I want to go back to the first town, where I first performed. Find that first girl, who had fear in her voice and somehow lit up the fear in me too. But I've seen what happens to the girls that I let fall in my search.

There will be no finding that girl.

I'll just have to keep looking, then.

* * *

Meh, this one's so so. But I couldn't get the idea out of my head so I had to write it. Usually I don't write stuff this dark. O_O Let me know how I did.


	9. Flashlight

Time frame: In high school still. Pre-PP.

* * *

**Flashlight**

x - x - x

My eyelids feel like they've got anchors tied to them. God, I can't read another word of this. I turn the book over to check the title again. I've forgotten what book I'm even reading. _Antony and Cleopatra. _Oh that's right, it's not even a book, it's a play. No wonder it's so damned boring. I sit up in bed, thinking I've a better chance of staying awake if I'm not laying down.

I glance at the clock on my nightstand. It's blinking _3:14am._ I groan quietly. I do not want to be reading this. I want to be asleep.

I've never been the type to go to sleep when I should.

Sure, I have plenty of excuses now. (Though it's not like I can actually give the real ones to my parents, or teachers for that matter.) But I didn't always spend the hours between dusk and dawn patrolling the streets, or waking up to a cold front clawing out of my throat, or trying desperately to skim through the book Lancer assigned which I have a test on in third period tomorrow that I hadn't even started because it took me three hours to catch Technus and now it's after 3am and yesterday I only got four hours of sleep…

Ahem. Anyways. What I _wanted_ to say is that even back before my life was a soap opera I was still never the type to go to bed when my parents preferred. Can't even tell you how many times they took away the chord to my computer just so I couldn't sneak on and play more games after they'd gone to bed.

Eventually they realized that didn't really work. See, most people think I don't like to read. I do. I actually adore reading. Just… not freakin' Shakespeare, okay? I would say "Don't tell Lancer" but he knows how much I hate the stuff. Milton, Chaucer, it's all a load of bologna. Everything I read for school falls right out of my head the minute I'm done taking the test I crammed for.

But when I was really little, as soon as my parents were sleeping I'd sneak out of my bed to the bookshelf and bring a couple back. There was this one picture book that showed the different constellations on each page, and when you pressed a button the main stars lit up. I must have thumbed through that book every single night from age four to six. It was a gift from Mom, but I'm pretty sure she regretted giving it to me after I got all obsessed with picking out the constellations every single time we went out at night. Heh. Well, it _was_ her fault.

As I got older, I kind of got more into games than reading. It was inevitable. It was all over the minute my parents got me a computer for my tenth birthday with enough power to run some of the more wicked games that Tucker was into. That one, I blame on Dad. (He's the one who caved to the begging, of course.)

But this is when my parents starting realizing I wasn't going to bed when I said I was. See, reading is a silent activity. It can be done with stealth. That had been easy to keep a secret. Gaming, on the other hand… let's just say my parents could tell I was playing because where else would the agonized screaming and clashing of swords and strangled battle cries and grand orchestra scores be coming from?

So yeah, eventually they decided enough was enough. After the multiple groundings didn't work they started just cutting the power to my room after 11pm. I thought that was a bit extreme, and I told them that in so many heated words. Well it worked at any rate. No more games after 11pm. No more reading either, without any light. So they thought they had won, of course.

But… Dad never asked me what had become of the flashlight that used to reside in the glove box of the RV. No one ever realized that it changed residences – to under my bed. And when everybody would retreat to their own beds and I was lying awake and couldn't sleep, I would just retrieve my little red flashlight and snag a good book from my shelf. Nowadays the picture books lay forgotten in the bottom of my closet (I don't have the heart to get rid of them, really) and my shelf is packed with science fiction.

There's a soft spot in my heart for that little red flashlight. We had a lot of good times together! (Don't tell Tucker I'm attached to a piece of technology, or I'll have to kill you, got it?) Sure I don't really need it anymore. I mean, my parents gave up on the whole 'power cutting' technique years ago. But it's not only that… I mean I don't physically need one anymore. One of the perks of being half ghost is you get their heightened senses. This means I can very nearly see in the dark. It's like, _half_ night-vision, if you will.

But I dunno. There's just always been something comforting about reading in dim lighting, something preferable to reading in full lighting or reading with my night vision. Like a sort of cozy secret, you know, between you and the book. You're in a tiny oasis of light in a desert of darkness, and it makes the pages all the more real. Or maybe it's just me.

I sigh and let the paperback copy of _Antony and Cleopatra _fall to my bedspread. There's no way I'm going to understand enough of this to pass the test tomorrow.

I look forlornly at my bookshelf. I haven't picked one from there in months. What with all the ghost fighting and trying to stay on top of chores and homework in between all that. It isn't fair that the only time I get to read (if you can call cramming at 3am _time) _I have to use for stupid books rather than the ones I love. I glance at the clock again. It says _3:32 _now.

I throw the stupid play on my nightstand, fully giving up on it.

And even though I should use the extra time to sleep I find myself floating over to the bookshelf instead. I unconsciously choose the book farthest to the left, which is the spot reserved for my favorite novel.

Lounging back on my bed I open to the first page. The words _2001: A Space Odyssey _stand there in bold letters, with italic letters underneath proclaiming it the work of _Arthur C. Clarke. _(God bless Clarke for existing and writing me this book.)

Of course I can see the words just fine in the dark, but I don't feel right until I flick on my own personal flashlight. A flash of coldness sparks behind my eyes and I blink as the page before me is washed in pale green light. I smile, knowing I won't sleep at all tonight as I dive headfirst into chapter one. My bedspread glows dimly in the light of my irises. It's not the same yellow as my old flashlight, but the light is as soft, and locks me to the book in this little island of light.

I forget all about Technus and Lancer. I'm orbiting Jupiter right now, staring at the swirling stripes of the red planet through the bay window, listening in wonder to the cacophonous crackle of its frequencies coming over the sound system aboard the Discovery.

I don't notice the world around me again until my dark window begins turning faintly to blue.

Yeah, I've never been the type to go to sleep when I should.

* * *

Yeah... I dunno where this one came from haha. I wanted to make this one lighthearted after.. ahem .. the last one. Lol.


	10. Secret

Time frame: Sophomore year of college (for Jazz) and senior year of high school (for Danny).

Let me start by saying that this is NOT repeat NOT a songfic! I seriously hate songfics. -_- But there _are_ lyrics in here. There's a difference.

**Songs referenced in this story, in order of appearance (listen to them while you read for awesome effects) :D**

"Wish You Were Here" - Pink Floyd

"A Perfect Sonnet" - Bright Eyes

"Keep The Customer Satisfied" - Simon and Garfunkel

* * *

**Secret**

x - x - x

Not for the first time, Jazz was convinced her brother was keeping a secret.

The annoying thing was that Danny was practically a professional secret hoarder. When he wanted something to stay secret it did just that until he changed his mind. The fact that his true nature was still hidden from the majority of the world after three long years was a testament to that.

After the whole alternate-future thing _(shudder)_ Jazz hadn't thought Danny really kept secrets anymore, at least from her. Well, he was a teenage boy so obviously there was the every-day stuff, like stammering excuses when she called him out on his drop-jawed habit of watching Sam as she walked away. Normal white lies brothers tell their sisters. Nothing too big.

But around October of her sophomore year at APU, she started to notice some odd shifts in Danny's behavior. Nothing alarming, really, just… odd.

It was little things. Like one night she came home from a study session and asked Danny if she could switch the channel to the news to catch the tail end of it. Normally there would be a heated argument about it, but Danny had acquiesced without a single sarcastic comment, instead heading to his room and shutting the door. He didn't come out for the rest of the night.

In fact, as the fall wore on Jazz began to notice that Danny had completely stopped watching TV. At least whenever _she_ was home. He hung out downstairs less and less frequently. Whenever she was home he always seemed to be behind his closed bedroom door. Jazz began to fret that perhaps something was bothering him, that maybe he was depressed or something. But when Danny passed her by in the hallways he shot her cheerful smiles. Over breakfast he laughed and joked and choked on his pancakes over his own jokes, more than normal if possible. When Sam and Tucker were over they were all as loud and annoying as ever.

And yet he spent more and more time alone in his room. And since he was out and about at all hours of the day dragging his butt to school, chasing rampant ghosts, and retreating to Sam's or Tucker's house, it kind of hurt that Danny spent his rare hours at home holed up in his cave.

On a Tuesday night in mid-November, Jazz approached Danny's door. She was about to knock when she noticed it was already open a crack. Soft music floated through the open space. The door creaked as she pushed it open and the music abruptly stopped.

Danny was at his desk, and his head whipped around toward the door, startled. She thought he was holding something misshapen in his hands but as she blinked it winked out of existence. Or maybe it was never there.

"Jeez, can't you knock?" he snapped at her.

She frowned at him. "You don't have to be rude. Your door was already open."

That didn't seem to appease him. He looked flustered and annoyed.

"I was only gonna ask if you wanted to come with me to the store. Mom wants me to pick up some stuff for dinner." She gave him a smile, to make up for intruding. As she stepped into the room she glanced at his computer screen and only saw a convoluted arrangement of parallel lines and numbers. What on earth was that about?

Danny followed her gaze to the screen and hastily minimized the window. "Can't tonight, Jazz. Sorry I'm kinda busy. Homework, you know." He offered her an apologetic smile but she left feeling dejected.

Instead of walking away she hovered for a minute just outside his door, wondering whether or not something was wrong. Should she try to weasel it out of him? Wait for him to tell her, like before?

Soon the soft music began to drift through the door again, and Jazz sighed and went away.

Things went on like this for a while.

Often Jazz would pass Danny's door and hear quiet music on the other side. Sad, lilting tunes. Was Danny just sitting in there alone and listening to sad music? The thought worried her to no end. Was he really depressed? Had she somehow missed all the signs?

On a Monday in December she pressed her ear to the door and listened. She felt dirty, but god she was so worried about him! There was light strumming of guitar, melancholy riff, almost inaudible lyrics she could barely make out. She missed some words and caught some in between.

_Did they … trade.. your heroes for ghosts… Hot ashes for trees.. Hot air for … Cold comfort for change.. Did you exchange a .. the war .. role in a cage?_ The rolling quiet riff on the guitar carried over the fading words.

She frowned at the door. Since when had Danny listened to this kind of music anyway? The Danny she knew listened to stupid music. What was that one band he and his friends were always fawning over? Dumpty Humpty? He liked screaming guitars and flailing hair music. Not… this. This soft guitar. It wasn't like him.

But whenever she asked Danny if there was something wrong, if there was anything he wanted to talk about, he just assured he was fine. Great, actually. It was maddening. He still confided in her about everything else whenever she asked. How are Sam and Tucker? She'd get honest answers. How'd the ghost fighting go today? He'd complain. How's school? More complaining. He didn't seem to be hiding anything. Worse, he seemed happier than ever.

So just what the heck was going on exactly?

On a Sunday in the last week of January Mom and Dad decided it was family movie night. So they rang Jazz's cell at the library and told her to meet them at the theatre to catch an afternoon showing. But when she got there it was just Mom and Dad. No Danny.

"Poor kiddo said he was behind on his report," Dad supplied, looking dejected.

"School comes first," Mom said firmly, as though we'd been implying otherwise.

"We can still have fun, just the three of us!" Dad said hastily, wrapping us both up in his massive arms.

But Jazz 'suddenly remembered' a project she needed to work on, and excused herself from the movie. Whatever, they'd love the alone time anyway.

When she got home she was planning on just asking Danny flat out if he was avoiding them on purpose. (Even though she knew that couldn't really be true, since whenever he was out of his room he was perfectly friendly.)

As soon as Jazz stepped in the door she heard music trailing down the stairwell. Usually the music was very quiet, but this was the opposite. Frenzied acoustic strumming, crashing chords, loud lyrics. She could hear the words this time.

_…stand in the sun.. and I breathe with my lungs.. trying to spare me the weight of the truth._

She was halfway up the stairs, listening numbly to the strung out voice.

_Saying everything you've ever seen was just a mirror.. spent your whole life sweating in an endless fever._

She paused at Danny's door, debating whether to knock.

_Now you're lying in a bathtub full of freezing water.. wishing you were a ghost._

The curiosity won her over and she turned the knob, pushing it gently inward. Danny was sitting on the other side of his bed, his back to her.

It was unmistakable what he was doing, really, even though he was facing the other way.

"Danny?" Jazz said quietly, breaking the spell.

He jumped violently, and the brown neck of the guitar vanished in his left hand, taking the music with it. He spun around, his arms seemingly empty now, his eyes bugging out of his head.

_"What are you doing here?"_ he spat at her.

"I… I was going to ask…" She didn't know _what _she wanted to ask anymore. Suddenly, everything was beginning to make a whole lot of sense. She thought back to those lines with numbers on them on his web browser. _Guitar tabs, duh! _"I'm sorry," she mumbled, looking down at her feet. God, she really felt horrible now.

Her brother ran one hand through his messy hair nervously, the anger on his face deflating into apprehension. "I suppose it's too much to hope that you didn't hear me, huh?"

She put one hand on her hip. "Is this what you've been hiding all this time, Danny? That you've been learning _guitar?"_

She couldn't wrap her mind around it. _Danny, _who was about as artistic as a broken broom. He drew in stick figures and _never _sang along with the radio. When they were four and six she tried to teach him to finger paint but he chose to paint himself instead. She couldn't reconcile _Danny _with that song she'd just been listening to.

His sheepish look answered her, and if that wasn't enough he looked down at his hand and the acoustic guitar flickered back into visibility.

"Well _that's _a really stupid secret!" Jazz fumed.

"Um.. sorry?" Danny offered.

"And here I thought you were like depressed or something!" She faltered. "You're.. you're not, are you?" she asked, jabbing a finger in his direction.

To her surprised, he laughed. "Um, no Jazz. Why would you think that?"

"Well… that song was so sad! And I've been hearing all this sad music coming from your room lately. I was worried you were just festering or something, but now I realize you've been _playing _sad music!" Now, she was starting to get even more worked up than before.

But once again, Danny just laughed. "Jeez Jazz, lighten up. I'm not depressed. Just because I'm playing a sad song doesn't mean _I'm_ sad." He rolled his eyes at her.

"Are you sure?" she prodded. He had sounded _really _into the song.

"Yeah Jazz, I'm _sure. _Would you stop trying to psychoanalyze me already?"

She scowled. "Well since when did you listen to this kind of music anyway? Last I heard you were all into that screamo hardcore crap that hurt my ears."

Danny chuckled. "Yeah well.. that music didn't really have much in the way of fun guitar riffs. I actually raided Dad's old CD collection. He used to be _way _into rock music, if you can believe it."

"Well the one you were just playing wasn't a rock song."

Danny turned slightly pink. "Yeah that one.. that one Sam actually requested. See she got me the guitar. But the condition was I have to learn whatever songs she wants." He rolled his eyes as he said it.

Jazz stepped farther into the room, sitting down in Danny's computer chair. "So you're pretty good, you know," she said honestly. "You _should _be, with all this time you've spent practicing!"

"Heh.. yeah." He started absently fingering the frets as he looked away. "Sorry about that." He looked at her sheepishly again. He was annoyingly good at that puppy-dog look.

"Why keep it a secret anyway?" she asked him.

"Oh uh…" he trailed off, picking at the lower strings of the guitar. He didn't even seem to realize he was doing it. "I dunno.."

Okay… "Will you play something for me?" she asked cheerfully.

He glanced up at that. "I don't know, Jazz."

"Oh come on, I've already heard you. I'm just your sister."

"It's just that... I'm not really the 'performance' type. I kind of just play for myself."

"Well what's the fun in that?"

He looked thoughtfully at the strings. He seemed to finally notice that he was fingering a quiet repeating riff on the third fret and stopped. "I guess it's fun but I don't really play for fun though."

"What do you mean?"

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and he must have caught her inquisitive look. "Oh no," he said slowly, "you're not going to start analyzing me. I can practically see you taking notes in your mind."

"Ah come on, Danny!" He knew her too well, really. "Don't be like that. I just want to be in the loop okay? I'm your sister _before _I'm your therapist."

"Not my therapist.." he mumbled almost inaudibly.

"Can't you just tell me what you meant?" she asked, less clinically this time and more sweetly.

He sighed, the fingers of his left hand spreading out over the neck of the guitar again. "Just don't overthink it, okay?"

"Okay," she agreed.

"I guess… I just wanted to do something that wasn't destructive you know?"

She waited patiently for him to continue.

"I mean I'm fine with who I am and everything. But it kinda sucks that everything I do with my hands just destroys something. Blast ghosts, punch ghosts, deflect ghosts, suck up ghosts.. I started going through like ten pencils a day at school. Kept snapping them in half on accident. It's like all my muscle memory just had to do with breaking shit." He chuckled darkly, pulling the notes up close to the body of the guitar, wavering on a higher string. "I wanted to do something with my hands that actually _produced _something for once."

Jazz stared. "So _that's_ why you picked up guitar?" He was doing it for _therapeutic_ reasons?

He blushed. "Well… yeah."

"That's…" Shockingly mature? Surprisingly healthy? "actually a very good way to deal with that," she managed.

"It's been great anyway," he continued, grinning. "I don't break my pencils anymore."

"That's good," she laughed. "And you know I'm not leaving until you play me a song by the way, I didn't forget about that."

He rolled his eyes, again. If that boy rolled his eyes any more they were going to be stuck permanently running in circles.

"And not a sad one," she added, "a happy one!"

"You don't know how to take no for an answer, do you?"

"Nope."

"Fine," he caved. "But I'm not singing."

"Oh come on! I already heard you singing too, so you can just stop pretending you can't mister-I've-got-secrets."

He cringed. "I was not even trying, though. My voice is utter shit. You don't want to hear it."

"Oh shove it Danny. And just play me a song, and you'd better sing the lyrics so I can properly enjoy it!"

There it was, the infamous Danny Eye Roll. "_Fine," _he seethed. "But don't blame me if your ears fall off. Let's see, happy song, happy song.. You like Simon and Garfunkel?"

"Um…. YES!" She had to stop herself from clapping her hands together in excitement. Who knew that one day her and Danny would actually share tastes in music? She would have laughed at the very idea, calling it impossible.

Danny grinned slyly and shifted the guitar into a better position, leaping into lyrics and strumming without any warning.

_"Gee but it's great to be back home. Home is where I want to be. I've been on the road so long my friend, and if you came along I know you couldn't disagree. It's the same old story."_

Danny chuckled as he repeated the last few chords. "This song is like my life story," he shot at Jazz sarcastically.

_"Everywhere I go, I get slandered, libeled, I hear words I never heard in the Bible. And I'm one step ahead of the shoe shine, two steps away from the county line, just trying to keep my customers satisfied, satisfied."_

"Danny!" she whined over his burst of 'woah woah's. "This is not a happy song!"

His laughter cut through his singing, but he kept on strumming. "It totally is," he assured her. "It's so upbeat. Just listen to the melody. There's supposed to be brass playing here, that helps with the mood some. Haven't you heard this song before?"

"No," Jazz confessed. The lyrics sounded sad to her. But Danny was grinning ear to ear as he continued playing. He made it sound so laid back when he sang. His voice wasn't amazing but he sounded so relaxed while he was singing that it fit. It was rough around the edges but it was, well it was rather endearing.

_"Deputy Sheriff said to me, tell me what you come here for, boy. You better get your bags and flee. You're in trouble boy, and now you're heading into more. It's the same old story."_

Jazz abruptly stopped worrying. It was painfully obvious that Danny _wasn't _sad. In fact he was practically glowing. In fact, he _was _glowing, she realized with a jolt. As he got more into the song, green flashed in his eyes. She wondered if he knew that happened.

_"And I'm so tired, I'm oh—oh-oh-oh-oh so tired, just trying to keep my customers satisfied, satisfied."_

She watching his fingers move freely over the strings, watched the absent smile on his face, and was suddenly immensely glad that Danny had found his way to a guitar.

* * *

And no, before you ask, I was actually NOT trying to pick song lyrics that referenced 'ghosts' lol. I just chose lyrics of songs that had good guitar parts and good lyrics. I noticed after the fact that they fit a little TOO well. Haha!

Hope you enjoyed this one. Please review. It's my life source. I will shrivel up and die without reviews. Do you want that to happen?


	11. Fist Fights

Time frame: Junior year of HS. Post-PP.

* * *

**Fist Fights**

x - x - x

Danny yawned and reached through his locker door lazily, casting solid fingers around until they landed on a thick textbook. Bingo. He was just drawing it out when he felt a firm hand at the back of his head, slamming his forehead painfully into the cold metal locker.

"Look who's all alone in the hallway," drawled a familiar voice. "It's almost like you're _asking _for it, y'know?"

With a huff of annoyance Danny released the textbook inside his locker and withdrew his hand, using his arms as leverage to push back halfheartedly at the mass looming behind him. "I so don't have time for this, Dash." But Dash didn't budge as Danny shoved back. The hand came back at his head, and Danny's cheek rammed into the row of lockers. He rolled his eyes and brushed his bangs out of his face. "I'm going to be late to Chemistry, dickwad."

"If you weren't such a little pansy then you wouldn't be late," Dash sneered behind him.

"Would you give it a rest for like, _five minutes_?" Danny seethed, his eyes sparking green despite himself. He took a deep breath to calm down as Dash laughed and shoved his back with both hands, sending him crashing sharply once more into the row of lockers.

"Come on, Fenturd! Defend yourself would ya? It's like picking on a kitten. This is seriously no fun," he whined.

Danny ground his teeth together, craning his neck around as far as he could with Dash's hands pressing his shoulders against the lockers. "I'm going to say this again, because apparently it didn't get through the last thousand times I've told you. I am _not, _repeat, _not _going to fight you!"

"Come on, chicken. See those fists? Why don't you use them?"

Danny glanced down and saw that his hands were indeed clenched into fists. He forced himself to release them. "Are you ever gonna give it up?"

It was rhetorical, really. Dash hadn't let up on this for a single day, ever since the start of junior year. In light of the events that had happened over the summer, bullying was no longer a prominent issue in Danny's life. From classmates at least. Even Dash, who hadn't whaled on him once this year. But Danny would happily take whaling-on-Fenton Dash before _this _Dash any day. _This_ Dash he had no idea how to handle.

"Of course. But not before I get what I want."

Danny rolled his eyes again. "Dash, this is _not _what you want. I can promise you that."

"Oh yeah. It totally is."

"Look I know you think this is funny and all, but I don't think you really understand what you're asking for."

"Oh I understand just fine, Fenton," he said, the sneer gone from his voice. "Just fight back for once would you?"

"If I fought you would you leave me alone about this?" he shot at Dash over his shoulder. Not that he was really considering it.

"Is that a yes? Are you caving in?" He shoved Danny again as he tried to slide out from between Dash and the lockers.

"Would you stop trying to provoke me?" Danny yelled, his anger starting to get the better of him.

"Why?" Dash said, grinning slyly. "Is it working?"

To Danny's chagrin, yes. It was.

He'd been more than a little shocked when Dash had asked him nicely on the first day of school, and for a week straight following that. But he'd been even more shocked that he didn't seem to understand that no meant no. And his campaign of trying to antagonize Danny into retaliating had begun and hadn't let up since. Three months now of telling him no. Every day. It was starting to wear on his nerves in a way the bullying never did.

"No," Danny growled through clenched teeth.

Dash cocked an eyebrow. "So you're telling me if I land this punch straight in your face, you won't lift a finger to stop me?" He raised his fist slowly, questioningly.

Danny just sighed. And when Dash's fist came flying toward his face he shot his left hand up and closed it around the fist before it reached him. He didn't miss the triumphant look in Dash's eyes as Danny shoved Dash's arm away, sending the bigger guy staggering two steps back. "Why do you want me to fight you so badly?" he asked incredulously as Dash reared back another punch.

"I thought it was obvious," he answered, fist crunching into the locker door as Danny side-stepped.

"It's not. I don't get it. All the other jocks are borderline terrified of me these days. What gives?"

Dash gingerly shook out the hand that had just punched metal. "It shouldn't matter to you. Don't you want revenge, Fenton?"

Just then the final bell rang, sealing his fate of another detention. Danny groaned audibly. "Great, now I'm late. Satisfied?"

"Actually yeah. That's means no one to interrupt our fight."

"I'm not fighting you."

"Then why are you still here?" he grinned sardonically.

That brought Danny up short. It was true, he could escape with an inordinate amount of ease. A simple surge of intangibility. Just walk away. He supposed the reason he didn't use it was out of pure habit at this point. But another part of him just _really _wanted to give in, and wipe that smirk of Dash's smug face.

Dash's hand closed around the collar of his shirt. It didn't have the same effect it used to, since Danny was almost as tall as him these days. But it brought back plenty irritating memories. Oh, so many memories.

"You know I've wanted to wipe the floor with you ever since freshman year," Danny said, carefully monotone, his face almost bored as Dash glared down at him.

To his surprise Dash's leer just grew bigger. "I figured." He lifted Danny a few inches off the floor and hurled him forward, but Danny slid lithely back, catching his balance on the balls of his feet. It was so nice that he didn't have to play clumsy anymore. Sure he was kind of a klutz, but not in a fight. Not for a long time now.

"I hope you're not expecting to fight Phantom," Danny drawled as Dash pressed a fist against his palm. "Because I've always wanted to do this as a human."

"Nah, that's what I was counting on," Dash quipped as he launched yet another fist straight towards Danny's face, his expression belying how much fun he was having. Danny leaned to the left to avoid Dash's arm and he caught the surprise in Dash's eye as he landed his own fist squarely in Dash's stomach, dug in by the weight of the jock's own momentum.

Danny stepped back amusedly as Dash choked and clutched at his stomach. But the reprieve was short-lived. Dash came back at him full throttle, tossing his fists in every direction, his eyes burning like a wolf's. Danny easily ducked every punch. Really, what was the speed of one teenager's fist compared to dodging a high-powered ectoblast, or a shot from an ectogun? It was so, so easy in comparison. Danny found himself smiling as Dash grew more and more flustered, failing to land a single hit on Danny. Well, what was the guy expecting?

Dash's fist collided with the locker and he let out a hiss of pain. Danny ducked under the outstretched arm and before Dash could so much as move, Danny's hard fist met with the side of Dash's face. Belatedly, Danny thought he shouldn't have hit so hard, as he noticed the trickle of blood from the split on Dash's cheekbone. But he asked for it, didn't he? Literally.

Dash took another sharp breath as he felt the swelling cut on his face, and then lunged at Danny again.

Side-step, grin, side-step, grin. It was like they were dancing. Danny so easily avoided Dash's advances it was almost not fun. But Danny would be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying this. But he was just playing with his food, really. Dash didn't even have the _slightest clue. _Maybe Danny needed to show him, so Dash never asked again.

As Dash's fist swung toward him Danny caught him by the forearm and swung him around like a rag doll before letting him go, planting a foot squarely in his back that sent him careening into the wall. Danny was there in an instant, slamming Dash's head forward into the wall with a thud. Dash tried to grab at him but Danny had him in a head lock and the angle was impossible. "Fuckin hell," Dash mumbled, his cheek smashed against the white wall. His elbow connected solidly with Danny's ribs, the first real shot he'd landed so far, but Danny didn't so much as flinch. The weight behind one elbow was nothing when you'd hit black pavement going eighty miles an hour before.

Danny clutched the back of Dash's letterman jacket and hurled him around, but as Dash turned around to try and get another shot in, Danny's fist uppercut his jaw, and he lunged forward, sending Dash tumbling backwards flat on his ass.

"Have you had enough yet?" Danny growled, half hating Dash and half hating himself as he loomed over his former bully, the collar of his shirt in one hand and his other hand repeatedly bashing Dash's face. He noticed that Dash's arms had completely stopped trying to punch him, and he released the shirt collar, the sickening realization of what he'd done dawning on him. Dash's left eye was swelling, that cut oozing, a purple bruise appearing on his jawline. "Ah shit," Danny muttered as he clambered off, falling backwards against the nearest classroom door.

Dash groaned and clutched his head.

"Shit, shit, Dash, I'm sorry! I _told _you I didn't-" He was cut off as the door he'd just hit opened and collided with his back.

He heard the gasp of a female teacher above him and he knew it was all over.

In Lancer's office sitting in the chair across from the desk, Danny kept his eyes on his shoes. He couldn't bring himself to look either Dash or Lancer in the eye as Lancer laid it into Danny.

"..never thought you would stoop so low, Mr. Fenton," Lancer was saying. "Just because you _can _do something, does not mean that you should!"

Danny grimaced. "I know." He didn't know what else to say.

"Actually, Mr. Lancer, I'm the one who started it." Danny tore his gaze from his shoelaces and looked over at Dash incredulously.

Lancer quirked an eyebrow. "Is that so, Mr. Baxter."

"Yeah, it is." Danny cringed just looking at Dash's face. A trickle of blood still leaked down the side of his face, dripping slowly to blend in with the red on his jacket. "I uh.. I was provoking him."

Lancer's eyes narrowed at the two of them. "Well, regardless of what happened, I'm still going to have to call each of your parents. We'll talk about your punishment when I return." He stood up and moved toward the door, sparing them a glance as he reached for the handle. "Can I trust you two not to tear each other apart while I'm gone?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yes," the two students groaned in unison.

When Lancer left an odd quiet fell on the office. Danny twiddled his thumbs together. He was halfway between feeling sorry for what he'd done to Dash and hating Dash for starting it.

"So.." Dash said, leaning lazily back into his chair. "You pack quite a punch."

Danny shot him an dubious look. "Well what were you expecting?"

Dash shrugged. "I dunno. I guess I just wanted to see what damage you could do as a human."

"Uh… why?"

It was Dash's turn to shoot Danny a look of skepticism. "You serious?"

Danny just looked at him blankly.

Dash leaned back again, pressing his fingers together at the bridge of his nose, trying to stifle the tiny flow of blood that was slowly leaking from one of his nostrils. "Well, you know… I was just curious."

"Yeah, I get that." He'd gotten that after Dash tried to provoke Danny into fighting him for three months straight. "But _why _were you curious?"

Dash glanced at him but then looked away quickly, his gaze falling on his shoes, then the door, then Danny again. "It's not every day you find out you've been whaling on a superhero for like two years," he said suddenly.

Danny blinked at him. Once. Twice. Then, he burst out laughing.

Dash scowled.

"I am – not – a superhero," he gasped between bouts of laughter.

Dash's scowl lightened and he just shrugged. "Ghost powers, superpowers. To-may-to, to-mah-to."

"So that's why then?" Danny managed once he calmed his laughing. "You just wanted to see what I was holding back all this time?"

"You could say that," Dash sneered, wiping in vain at some of the blood on his jacket. "You could also say that you probably deserved to get at least one good punch in, after all that." Danny looked up at Dash just in time to catch a frown on his face, before it dissolved back into his more characteristic sardonic grin. Danny's retort caught in his throat.

What did he just say? It seemed like, in Dash's own twisted messed-up way, he was actually… apologizing. For everything.

At a loss for words to reply to that, Danny instead found himself saying, "I hope this means you won't be asking again."

Dash scoffed loudly. "You shitting me? If I want my ass handed to me like that again I'll just go out onto the field without my gear on, thanks."

Danny chuckled along with Dash, until he stopped abruptly, remembering that this was _Dash, _and why was he laughing at a shared joke with Dash?

"You're paying for this jacket you know," Dash said, rubbing at the flecks of blood on his shoulder.

"Oh come off it. The blood blends in perfectly with the red. Besides, if anyone notices just tell them you sustained an injury in a sick ghost fight. The girls will fall all over you." Besides, Dash was hilarious if he thought that Danny was really paying for that stupid jacket.

"I guess it _was _technically a ghost fight," Dash snickered.

Over the next week at school, the other jocks seemed slightly more afraid of him than normal. Usually they parted like the red sea whenever Danny passed, wary of the kid they'd always picked on before. Now they openly stared at him and flinched when he came too close. It had spread to the rest of the student body now too. The students who weren't usually wary of him seemed to stare at him as he walked past. Everyone seemed to know that Danny had beaten the ever-loving shit out of Dash.

The only one who didn't seem at all deterred by that fact was Dash himself.

Danny was zoning out in fourth period on Friday, trying to focus on the partnered assignment he was working on with some guy named Tom, when a wad of paper hit the back of Danny's head. He looked around but nobody else seemed to have noticed. Danny picked up the paper and flatted it out on his desk.

_you were so right, the chicks dig ghost fights _

_thanks for the battle scars_

_haha!_

Danny looked behind him and saw Dash smirking and giving him a subtle thumbs up. Dash's partner was a curvy girl named Laura, and she was batting her eyelashes and gazing at Dash in complete rapture.

Danny rolled his eyes and scribbled back a response, wondering just where all his malice for that idiot had gone.

_Tell her they don't hurt. That always gets them._

He kicked the paper across the floor toward Dash's chair with the butt of his heel. He concentrated on his assignment but laughed to himself as he heard Laura sigh passionately across the room.

* * *

Typically when I write post-PP I write assuming that the people Danny revealed himself to in Antarctica tried to keep his secret, and it stayed a secret at least for a few more years. But in this fic I did not do that. Just pointing that out I guess, since it's such a divergence from what I normally write. It makes it AU for me almost!

Hope you liked.


	12. Blocks

**Blocks**

x - x - x

On a flat purple rug Ramona leaned forward on her knees, cautiously placing a wooden block into place on the highest tower of the castle. She had been working on it for what felt like a million years. At least, it felt like it. Mom had told her a kazillion times that she exaggerated a lot.

She bit her lip, surveying her work. What she really needed was to take a picture of this extravagant masterpiece, this glorious castle she'd made out of her blocks. If only she were tiny enough to go inside there and run around.

She was about to get up go find her Dad to take a picture when the blocks began to give off a bright luminous light. She cocked her head at them curiously. Great, either Dad or Grandpa must have gotten to them and modified them in some way or another. They were probably Fenton Blocks ™ now. She thought Mom told them to leave her toys alone! This was great. She hadn't brought any other toys over to Grandma and Grandpa's house with her when she came with Dad today.

To her surprise they all at once began to swirl into the air, knocking together loudly. Oh, so it was one of _those _kinds of Fenton experiments. The accidentally-hurts-you-kind. Definitely Grandpa's doing, then.

But then she heard a definite "_Boooo…." _And she rolled her eyes. There was only one ghost she knew who did that. "Beware!" he shouted, materializing above her swirling blocks. "For I am the Box Ghost! Controller of all things boxly! And these tiny cubes of wood are now under my power!"

Ramona quickly shuffled to her feet, pressing her fists against her hips. She could run get Dad, but he was working in the lab with Grandma and Grandpa. Besides, it was just the _Box Ghost. _And she liked to think she was formidable, even if she was less than four feet tall. "Box Ghost, you ruined my castle!"

The spiraling swirl of her glowing wooden blocks slowed but he continued glowering down at her. "What castle? I saw only boxes, that are now under my-"

"You better put it back the way it was _right now!" _she yelled, stamping her foot. "It took me like forty years to make it that perfect!"

"Puny human! No one tells the Box Ghost-"

"Right now!" she repeated, glaring at him ferociously.

"The Box Ghost does not-"

"You better put them back in five seconds or I'm gonna get my Dad," she warned.

"But I-"

"Five…"

He scowled at her. "These boxes are-"

"Four…" The swirl of her blocks slowed to a halt and Ramona knew she was winning. "Three…"

"Okay, okay!" The glow vanished and her blocks dropped unceremoniously onto the purple carpet.

"You have to put them the way they were!" she cried, looking at the ruined pile of blocks, what used to be her beautiful castle.

"The Box Ghost does not memorize these things," he huffed.

"Then you better help me fix it."

He looked indignant as he floated there, arms crossed. "The Box Ghost does not play with little-"

"Two..."

"You should _beware-"_

"_Oooone_…"

"Alright!" he conceded, floating down to the pile of blocks.

They were halfway through rebuilding her castle when Dad's upper body poked up through the living room floor. He pushed up the clunky goggles he wore while working, and they made his white hair stick up like crazy. "You okay up here Rae? I thought my ghost sense might've gone off, but you know how hard it is to tell next to the portal…" He trailed off when the Box Ghost peaked around from the other side of the half-finished structure. "Ah, come on. I turn off the ghost shield for five minutes to fix a bug and you show up to antagonize my daughter?"

"It's okay Dad. We were just playing." She smiled at him. He looked so goofy with his hair all messed up like that.

Dad looked at the Box Ghost, frozen with one of her blocks in each hand. And he started laughing. "Well it looks like you've got this one all taken care of, Rae. I can't wait to tell your mother you defeated the Box Ghost all by yourself. And you didn't even use the thermos."

* * *

Gah. I've started following all these DP blogs on Tumblr recently and everyone is drawing Daddy Phantom? It's just so cute I couldn't get it out of my head haha. I just think it fits with his character perfectly that he would become the same dorky embarrassing dad his own dad was. I'm gonna give myself a nosebleed or something.


	13. Theory

Yeah I dunno where this came from. Hahaha.

Time frame: *half-hearted shrug* Years after college.

* * *

**Theory**

x - x - x

Sam had a theory.

Well, Sam usually a lot of theories. About everything. About the furtive cat lady next door who played the piano between midnight and two in the morning, about whether those crosswalk buttons were actually functional or were there for show, about the relationship between corporations and the American government, about, you know, the nature of the human condition and consciousness in general. Sam thought about everything. A lot.

Which is why she had been nursing a pet theory about The Fenton Ghostcatcher.

See, the first time Danny fell through it by accident, she had asked him what it felt like.

"Like I grew an extra set of eyes and they were facing each other," he had said dryly.

Naturally, she'd pushed him to elaborate.

He'd said it felt like he was staring into his own eyes. He was simultaneously aware of being in both bodies – his human and his ghost one. Kind of similar to duplicating himself, which was a power he hadn't learned until later on.

Which is why his second experience with the Ghostcatcher was so fascinating. Imagine Sam's surprise when two Dannys emerged that were as different as night and day. Of course, the plan had gone exactly as Danny had wanted (until everything went to hell of course). Human Danny was a lazy sack of bricks, hellbent on doing nothing but having a good laugh and chilling out. While all of Danny's hero related characteristics had been packed into his ghost self. It was almost uncanny how perfectly the line was drawn between Danny's personality traits, splitting it exactly how Danny had envisioned.

So she got to thinking, that maybe the Ghostcatcher.. well maybe it _knew. _Maybe it found that split in Danny's mind that he'd already created for himself, and just brought the mental split into physical reality.

After the whole CAT thing, she didn't want to think about it. She was just relieved that everything turned out okay. Thinking about what had almost happened to her and everyone else wasn't as painful as thinking about what might have happened to Danny. After he told her about meeting the alternate future Vlad, she knew her theory about the Ghostcatcher was right. Granted, Vlad didn't use the Ghostcatcher to split apart his human and ghost halves. But the two inventions operated on the same mechanics, and functioned in the same way. They were just different mediums of the same exact technology, like driving a van versus driving a truck. The point was, Sam knew her theory was proven correct.

Because when Vlad separated the two halves, Super Danny that Sam had laughed so hard at was not there. Fun Danny that Sam had been so annoyed with and yet very amused by was not there either. The mental split Danny had in his mind had changed. He no longer felt himself divided by the desire to have fun and be normal, and the desire to help people. The accident at the Nasty Burger (that might have been) changed all that. It led to a Danny that felt himself divided between simply being a human, and the desire to take refuge in the power of being a ghost unhindered by the weakness of human emotions.

Some of this Sam inferred. Danny was reluctant to say much on the subject besides the bare details.

So while she didn't like thinking about that horrible almost-future, she did appreciate the fact that it proved her theory right. That if Danny were to be divided, it would be on the mental divider that he had already created for himself.

Which is why Sam knew this was a brilliant idea. Really, she had to hand it to herself. This was probably the best idea ever. Sure, it was kind of a bad idea last time. But they were young and stupid. Surely it wouldn't backfire as horribly this time, because they were prepared and knew what to expect. Kind of.

"I know you think this is brilliant and all, but I'm having some doubts."

Sam rolled her eyes. "It'll be fine," she assured him. "Just make sure you're thinking hard about exactly where you want the line drawn."

"I don't know if I can consciously control that…"

Sam rolled her eyes, harder. "Just trust me, okay? And if it doesn't work the way we want it, we'll just throw in in reverse and you can go back through. That sound good?"

Danny shrugged. Then he folded his arms and gave her a calculating stare. "You just want _fun_ Danny again, don't you?" he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her conspiratorially.

"Maybe I do. _Maybe_ I just want a super babysitter so I can have fun Danny all to myself. Ever thought about that?"

She flashed him a coy smile and it was hard not to laugh when he tripped over a stuffed bear on the floor in his haste to get across their home office to where she stood with the Ghostcatcher.

"If you'd put it that way from the get-go then fun Danny might already be hauling you upstairs over his shoulder."

"I thought it was crystal clear when I explained that I wanted to do something with the Ghostcatcher that you couldn't do with a duplicate," she said. She didn't think it was possible to roll her eyes any harder. (Of course they couldn't do it with Danny's _duplicate_ babysitting Ramona. That just felt wrong on _so_ many levels.) "But of course, even though we've been married for like seven years you are still totallyblind to a come on." That was Danny though, still as clueless as the day they met. It was endearing, really.

"So just.. think about where I want the line drawn?" he verified, sizing up the contraption with his eyes.

"Yep. I guess." In this case, the line should probably be somewhere between "loving and devoted husband" and "fun and protective father." Oh yeah, this was definitely top three in the list of Sam's Best Ideas Ever. She wondered which traits of Danny's would fall on which sides of the line.

Whatever she thought, she didn't think he was serious when he said "hauling you upstairs over his shoulder" but apparently he was. Even though she kicked the whole way, and yelled after ghost Danny to be a responsible adult with their little girl, who was watching TV, blissfully ignorant of the unfolding situation, in the living room.

When they finally came downstairs ages later to check up on Danny and Ramona, they were nowhere to be found. They panicked for about ten minutes until Sam checked her phone and saw a ten-minute old message from Jazz telling her to turn on the news.

Sam gave Danny a murderous glare like this was all his crummy fault and flicked on the local news channel. They were covering a story about Danny Phantom, who had apparently kidnapped a toddler and was taking her on a piggy-back flight around downtown Amity Park. _Of all the stupid...!_

"This is the worst idea you have _ever_ had," Sam told Danny bluntly, before going off to retrieve the Ghostcatcher from upstairs.

He was close behind her, grabbing at her waist from behind. "Eh, it's not so bad," he said, nearly tripping her by trying to kiss her halfway up the stairs. "Maybe there's enough time for round two before they get back."

Sam rolled her eyes and tried to enter the office to set the catcher on reverse, but Danny just scooped her up again and hauled her away to the bedroom, cackling like a madman the whole way as she yelled obscenities at him.


	14. Portals

Time frame: Errr probably like senior year of high school. Also this is kind of AU. Kind of. I guess. I think you'll see what I mean.

* * *

**Portals**

x - x - x

Danny had always thought the term "half-ghost" was monumentally oversimplified. Like calling a black hole a black hole. It's something so fundamentally incomprehensible to the human mind that it ends up with a half-assed name which dulls its meaning. Calling it something bland like a "black hole" is easier than thinking about the fact that there is a region of spacetime in which the laws of physics as known to humans are thrown to the winds.

In truth, dying was something like being sucked into a black hole anyway.

It was the Box Ghost, oddly enough, that he learned it from.

On a particularly shitty Sunday night, the Box Ghost had shown up wreaking havoc for the fifth time that week. Danny had a test coming up in first period that he hadn't even begun to study for, a test he'd just failed on Friday, his parents had grounded him, again, and on top of it all he still had three broken ribs from his run in with Skulker the day before. So when Boxy showed up, for the fifth time that week, Danny did something he didn't often do: lost it.

Usually he didn't unleash his full force onto this particular ghost, not when he could round him up so easily with a few punches. But that day he ground the Box Ghost into the floor of the deserted warehouse, taking out all his frustrations on him.

He remembered taking him by the collar and shaking him, devolving from a battle into a yelling match. "How the hell do you find your way back so quickly anyway?' he had screamed.

The Box Ghost was so frightened and weak from the beating that he had actually answered. "I – I can sense the portals," he stammered out, his eyes wide with fright. Apparently he was so affected by Danny's sudden no-bullshit attitude that he didn't even tack on an overconfident "BEWARE!"

That brought Danny up short. "Wait, what?"

"I can sense them before they open," he blubbered, "in the Ghost Zone. When someone dies I feel it, and I know where the portal's going to open! So I get there before it does…"

The anger abruptly deflated from Danny's chest, replaced by a bright flame of curiosity. "Wait, what are you talking about? When someone dies…?" The Box Ghost glanced from Danny's face to his fists on his collar and back again, still terrified. Danny released him then, just eager to understand what the ghost was trying to tell him. "Explain," Danny said curtly, his eyes flashing brightly enough to make the Box Ghost cower.

The Box Ghost gulped, although he didn't technically have the physiology to do so. "When – when a person dies, the departure of their soul creates a temporary portal as it leaves the human world. They either go on or they go to the Ghost Zone. When the portal opens in the Ghost Zone and it's near me, I can sense it," he whimpered.

That night as he deposited the Box Ghost via thermos through the Fenton Portal, he had looked at it with new eyes. Something nagged at him, a lurking suspicion in the back of his mind. Something tugged deep within him when he looked at the closed metal doors of the portal, behind which he knew a whirlpool of glowing ectoplasm swirled endlessly, the tiny divide between this world and the next.

A divide that he lived in every day.

He always wondered when his enemies spit the word "halfa" at him like an insult, if they truly understood what he was. If they ever wondered what it felt like to be neither dead nor alive, and yet to be both at once.

When Tucker or Sam said the words "half-ghost" in passing he wondered how they had ever come to be so comfortable with the term. It was so ingrained in their daily lives its place in their vernacular had passed into comfortable permanence. They tossed it around as easily as they tossed around the words "goth" or "geek" or "vegetarian" or "gamer."

In short, Danny had been half alive and half dead for so long now that it was normal to the people who knew about it. They never thought twice about it anymore.

The only one who thought about it constantly was Danny.

Sometimes at night he would toss and turn in his bed, half awake and half dreaming. He would partially awaken in his real bed, only dimly conscious, before slipping back into dreamland, partially awakening there. He would bob back and forth like this on and on, never fully conscious in either reality, until morning peaked through his blinds and he would awaken wholly, finally, in his bed, covered in cold sweat and hopelessly tangled in his sheets. But even blinking in the morning light, he couldn't be sure he had actually awoken this time. Maybe he really was still tossing and turning, and he was in dreamland right now. Maybe he still needed to wake up. Even as he numbly ate his breakfast he would be half expecting to wake up from the dream.

That's what it was like being half dead and half alive. It was like he was poised, floating on the surface of a lake. Below him was watery death, above him the fresh air of life. All of existence lived on either side of the surface's divide, and only Danny lived in the space between. Consistently dipping his head in and out of the water. Somehow inhabiting two worlds at once. As if he lived _in _the portal, instead of on one side of it.

Once he had tried to explain this feeling to Sam and Tucker. After all, they were his support system. Jazz was supportive in her own endearing way, but he didn't want to be psychoanalyzed about this particular thing.

But his friends had looked confused. Worried, even.

"Danny," Sam had said slowly. "I know you're half ghost, but you're still half human. You live here, in the _human_ world." She said 'human world' with such emphasis that Danny's response died in his throat. He didn't know whether them understanding this feeling, this feeling of having one foot on earth and one foot in a void beyond the edge of the universe, was worth the distraught expressions on his friends' faces.

"Yeah, yeah I know that," he'd agreed, dropping his gaze. "You're right."

At one point, he'd taken solace in the fact that at least he wasn't alone there at the edge of the water, poised between two dimensions. As much as he hated Vlad Masters, at least he existed. At least there was someone else like Danny. He didn't know what he might have thought of himself if he'd been alone, if he'd never had another half-ghost to compare himself to. Even in his twisted sick excuse for a personality, at least Vlad had validated Danny's existence, if only by contrast.

But Danny had been wrong. Very wrong.

He'd always taken it for granted that he and Vlad's accidents had been the same. Even though he'd actually been back in time and seen Vlad's accident in person, watched the prototype portal explode into Vlad's face, scarring him with ecto-acne and forcing him into a long hospitalization, it still never clicked with Danny how fundamentally different the two occurrences were.

It never clicked until that conversation with Danielle.

She was his other comfort, to put it simply. She was a lot of really confusing things to him, but one of them was comfort that there was another half-ghost like himself, even if she was created through some sick game of Vlad's.

Danny tracked her down in the Ghost Zone late one August, following the trail of irritated stories left in the lairs and realms she passed through on her way. It seemed she had a weakness for pranking other ghosts. He thought it was hilarious, but he tried not to laugh in the ghosts' faces while they gave him clues to find her.

Eventually the trail went cold in Dora and Aragon's realm, and he did find her, trailing along after Dora in her castle like a lost puppy. Dora had apparently become absolutely smitten with her, and threatened Danny within an inch of his life when he tried to take Dani off to the side to speak with her. Well, at least she was being looked after. It bothered him to no end that Dani refused to come live with him, opting to map out her own course instead.

He really felt awful that after so long apart from each other, the real reason he was here to see her was because of Vlad. If he had his way, Dani wouldn't have to hear Vlad's name ever again.

"I don't get it, why do you want to know all of a sudden?" she asked skeptically, one hand perched on her hip as she leaned against the tapestry on the wall of the vaulted chamber.

Danny frowned, trying to think of a way to tactfully have this conversation. "Well, to be honest, Vlad's been trying to clone me again. I've been dodging ghost after ghost trying to reign me in and get a midmorph DNA sample from me."

"But what does this have to do with me?" she asked dryly.

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I was kind of wondering how Vlad managed to create you at all, or any of the other clones, without a midmorph sample. It seems.. really important. I don't know why I never wondered before."

Her bright blue eyes blinked as comprehension spread across her face. "Oh.. Oh, I get it."

"Do you know?" he wondered.

"Yeah well, I was really bored in those first few weeks," she shrugged. Danny's stomach tightened. He didn't like to think about what it must have been like for her to awaken in Vlad's lab. "I asked him a lot of questions. He just answered them. Looking back, I don't think he really thought twice about telling me such secret information," she added bluntly. "It was like... he could tell me because it's not like I was about to repeat it. I wasn't a real person to him. He was just going to destroy me anyway."

Danny resisted the urge to punch the stone castle wall. How could she say it so nonchalantly? So many of his personality traits had passed into her psyche, and he didn't like seeing the tendency to dissociate from painful memories there too. He wondered distantly if this is how Jazz felt when he did that.

"So what did he tell you?" Danny forced himself to say.

"Well he said the reason we clones were unstable was because he was missing the key piece of DNA, what it looked like midmorph. That's why we were never stable – he never found the link to fuse the ghost half and human half of his clones. They all disintegrated eventually. You know, except for me. I've got you to thank for stabilizing me, even if it wasn't in the way Vlad had in mind. But you already know all this. Anyway, Vlad said that he based our ecto-composition off of his own, instead of yours. Since he was missing that midmorph DNA."

"His own?" Danny repeated dumbly. Wasn't his makeup essentially the same?

"Yeah, his own," she repeated, cocking her head to the side like a curious puppy. "What, didn't you know his was different?"

"No… I didn't."

Dani shrugged again. "I don't really know how it's different, but it is. He said it had to do with his accident being different from yours, but that's one topic he never expanded on no matter how much I bugged him. He'd get pretty angry and it was usually a bad idea to bug him when he was angry."

"So.. you're different from me too?" Danny asked slowly.

"Well, yeah I guess so. Now that I think about it. When you stabilized me you just stabilized my ecto-composition, which is actually the opposite of what Vlad wanted. You made me like him, not like you."

Danny's frown deepened. He didn't like hearing her say that, even on a purely biological level.

"Yeah I didn't really question it back then, I guess just cause I was so young still. His word was my law, you know? He always said he _could _stabilize us the way he was stabilized, but to be half-ghost we needed to be stabilized like _you _were. Hence, the midmorph DNA. Vlad's kind of a sick mofo, when you think about it," she chuckled as an afterthought. "Can you kick him in the balls for me when you see him next?"

Danny nodded numbly, having no idea what to say to her. Did she even realize the gravity of the information she was handing him right now?

That night he found himself down in the lab with only a vague memory of walking down the steps. His hands were tucked lazily in his pockets, his gaze on the portal but out of focus. He wasn't really looking at it. He imagined for a moment that he was looking beyond it, that he could see through it into the wormhole, over the event horizon into the crushing infinity.

Of course, he really shouldn't have been surprised. He wanted to kick himself for being so stupid. He had known all the details but hadn't put the clues together.

Vlad, blasted in the face with ectoplasm, is hospitalized for nearly two years. The first sighting of the famed Wisconsin ghost doesn't show up in newspapers until after the end of Vlad's hospitalization. Maybe it wasn't a coincidence. Maybe, unlike Danny, the change in Vlad had been a slow process.

Was it possible, really, that all this time Danny had been wrong? That everyone had been wrong? That Vlad was maybe not quite as dead as he seemed? Maybe it was possible to become so tainted by the ectoplasm in his system that it became an ingrained part of his anatomy. A mutation.

He could vividly imagine Vlad in his dimly lit laboratory, pouring over his precious clones of Danny, painstakingly infecting them with the same mutation. Humans, with ghost powers.

If it was true, then Danny was more alone than he had ever known. He really _was _the only half-ghost.

Maybe it accounted for the reason Vlad so desperately wanted to clone him. It was obvious Vlad knew about their fundamental differences. Maybe it accounted for the fact that Danny could overpower Vlad, albeit with great difficulty, though the older man had a good twenty years experience on him. Maybe it was all to do with the fact that they were _different._

Danny walked forward, placing his hand on the cold steel of the sealed portal doors. He could feel the metal humming under his palm, a light electric current buzzing beyond the thick wall.

He'd always taken it for granted that he'd managed to single-handedly fix his parents portal, with the simple accidental pressing of a button. His parents had wired it so there were two 'On' buttons, one on the inside and one on the outside. However, whenever they were both triggered, nothing happened. Just crackling electricity until it faded to nothing.

When it powered up with Danny on the inside, his parents had chocked it up to faulty wiring. His mother was sure they must have flipped the cables that were supposed to ensure that the inner switch must be turned on first for the outer switch to work. When she'd gone back and scoured over the wiring, she had found that it was true. That's why it had been able to turn on with Danny on the inside.

But no one ever questioned the fact that his parents had been building prototype after prototype on the same basic principles for years, and it had never worked until now.

That explosion which deformed Vlad, countless other failed prototype accidents following that, none of their portals had ever succeeded. But his parents were so caught up in the discovery that they never doubted, never wondered why now it so suddenly worked.

But Danny was beginning to fear that he knew just exactly what had made it work.

"You down here again Danny?"

His head whipped around so quick he might have gotten whiplash, until his eyes found Jazz, standing uncertainly at the bottom of the staircase. She peered at him worriedly, a textbook tucked under her arm.

"Yeah, just.. thinking," he offered lamely. He wished she hadn't caught him staring at the portal like this. She'd already seen him down here pondering at it several times this month.

"Anything you wanna talk about?" she asked hopefully.

He sighed inwardly. Not unless she wanted to talk about what it felt like to feel half-there. Like half of your soul was a billion light years away. He wanted to say no, but watching her hopeful expression fall when he lied to her always made him feel so guilty. So instead he just shrugged noncommittally, turning back to gaze at the closed portal doors, the yellow-black wasp pattern decorating it like a warning sign.

"Is something about the portal bothering you, Danny?" she asked quietly. He could hear her setting the book down on the table as she approached him but he didn't turn around.

He didn't know if he wanted to inflict all the information and suspicions buzzing around in his brain on his sister. What would she say if he told her that their parents' Ghost Portal wasn't just the orchestrator of his death but that it _was _his death, personified? That the pathway carved by his departing soul had been latched onto and held open indefinitely by this invention?

Really, it was no wonder that he felt like he had one foot on the other side of the universe. Half of his soul had been sucked into the black hole, by this hunk of metal had propped open the hole with a stick. So Danny was stuck, halfway here and halfway there, like no one else in all of history had been.

He wondered what would happen to him if his parents ever had a reason to power down the portal.

"No," he answered finally, tearing his gaze away from the gleaming yellow and black stripes. He hadn't realized that Jazz's hand rested reassuringly on his shoulder until it fell away back to her side. "Nothing at all."


	15. Prompt

**Random author's note:** In regards to previous chapter 14, the "Portals" story, I just realized something kind of disturbing. If the little headcanon I made up for that story was true, in regards to the way the Fenton Ghost Portal was able to start function, then that would mean in order for Vlad's portal (the one in his lab in his mansion) to start functioning he would have had to have killed someone? I dunno haha, the theory for that story is kinda flawed and not without plot holes but I found it too interesting NOt to write about.

* * *

Time frame: Late junior year of HS. Post-PP.

* * *

**Prompt**

x - x - x

"These kids are going to be the death of me," groaned Ron, one of Edward Lancer's more irritating colleagues. The man was brilliant and almost fun, outside of work. But at school he was like a one-stop-shop for never-ending complaints. "I swear they get lazier and lazier every year. When I was in school, my folks would have whipped me halfway to Timbuktu if I pulled the stunts my students pull now."

Edward rubbed his temples methodically, contemplating all his possible escape routes. Unfortunately, Ron had followed him into the teachers' lounge when he came in here to grade during his free period, and they had only _just _sat down. So Edward couldn't feasibly get up and leave without being downright rude. "Yes, they certainly can be lazy," he agreed listlessly, flipping to the next paper in his stack. This one hadn't even been typed, as per the requirement. He settled into deciphering the chicken scratch handwriting.

"I mean, barely more than half of my World History students even turned in this week's assignment," Ron went on. "It's like kids these days don't even care. They've got no drive." Ron sifted through his own stack of papers, marking up the top copy viciously with red ink. "This assignment wasn't even hard," he went on, causing Edward to rub his temples more exasperatedly.

Edward already knew all about about the paper Ron's class had been assigned this week. As teachers, they often got a kick out of lining up their units. It made for an exciting an enhanced learning process. Theoretically, the students could apply knowledge learned in one class in another class, and it was supposed to help them succeed.

If only they did their homework, that is.

In Edward's Junior Composition class, each Friday the students were required to hand in a weekly narrative essay, written on the prompt of the week. Edward had gladly gone to great lengths to ensure that the essay topics this year lined up with the rest of the junior teachers' curriculums. So far it had been hit or miss, but he hoped that on some level the method was helping the students.

This whole quarter had been dedicated to learning the history of world religions in the World History class, and this week Ron had been going in depth on Greek mythology in particular. It was an important topic, since it pervaded common culture everywhere in this day and age. So Edward had lined up his writing prompt accordingly: "Write from the perspective of a figure in Greek mythology with which you identify."

So far, the papers he'd graded had been fairly average. He got an amusingly overconfident spiel from Mr. Baxter detailing how he was the mighty Zeus, god over all the other students at Casper High. Lancer rolled his eyes at the paper as he marked it a "C plus." It had been difficult and a bit revolting to read a certain Ms. Sanchez's piece directly after that, explaining how she was as alluring and seductive as Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Edward probably should have seen that one coming. But really, he hadn't done much wondering about which Greek figures his students would choose. After twenty years of teaching, Edward Lancer had perfected the art of distancing himself emotionally from the personal lives of his students, focusing solely on their academic lives. He didn't care why they chose what they did, just that it reflecting into good writing.

In truth, there was only one student he had pondered over, wondering which figure he might choose. He'd be lying to himself if he said he wasn't interested to read this student's paper. He'd been more than happy to see Mr. Fenton dropping two stapled papers onto his desk on Friday, seeing as he only turned in the weekly prompt on time once a month, if that.

But Edward usually gave him an extension anyway, when he was late on his homework. That was something the other students weren't supposed to know about. Daniel kept it on the hush, and so did Edward.

Across the table from him in the lounge, Ron had lapsed finally into a sullen silence, attacking his History papers constantly with his red correction pen, making angry faces at all the papers. Edward wondered how someone so bitter had ever gotten into teaching in the first place.

He finished marking an A on Ms. Bourne's paper likening herself to the Greek god Hermes, and moved the paper to the back of the stack. One glance at the paper now at the top of the stack told him whose it was. It had been typed, but with a hasty "Danny Fenton, P.3 Composition" scrawled in pencil at the top of the paper, since he'd forgotten to type in a heading.

Edward had a guess, a sneaking suspicion what Daniel's paper might be about. Once he'd been out walking to the library, and on his way past city hall he had noticed Daniel sitting there on the steps all alone. He was much too far away to have noticed Lancer himself, and too far to greet or wave to. As Edward strolled past, he had wondered what Daniel was doing there, resting his head so dejectedly on his hands, staring out into the distance.. staring at.. oh.

In the middle of the plaza was that statue, the one an anonymous donor had commissioned after the asteroid conflict at the beginning of the school year. It was a fifteen-foot-tall rendition of the town-hero-turned-world-hero, Danny Phantom. The statue showed a face with extreme confidence and determination, one hand poised upward, supporting the whole globe. But the kid on the steps looked the opposite of confidence, his gaze faraway as he stared at the statue.

Edward began reading Daniel's paper, fully expecting to hear the name "Atlas" – to read what it felt like to have the weight of the world thrust upon one's shoulders.

_'I am life and death,' _it began.

The word Atlas appeared nowhere on the page. Edward read on, his resolve failing. This was... this was arguably worse than what he had pictured. He'd been prepared to read about Daniel's unfair responsibility, but not this.

'_Two worlds tear me in two directions. Caught in the crossfire of heaven and hell.'_

Edward sighed and paused in the paper to snag a cup of coffee from the espresso machine by the fridge. He was starting to really need it. He'd never imagined that Daniel had an actual knack for writing, not until his student stopped hiding his true self from his assignments. Once he was no longer faking at being a bumbling nobody average student. Once he no longer had to pretend, the truth came out in his work. It was sometimes beautiful, and yet shocking. At least, in Edward Lancer's class. He was the only teacher which knew the truth behind Daniel.

_'Half my time spent in the blooming spring. Half spent in the harvest.'_

A full page into his paper, Daniel had still yet to mention the name of the Greek figure he was describing, but Edward had already figured it out. He was something of a mythology buff, himself. Persephone. Daniel was talking about Persephone.

_'Even in the spring when surrounded by fresh flowers, I can feel the harvest calling. When Autumn takes me and I fall, even drowning deep in the river Styx I can still feel the warmth of spring.'_

Persephone was the Greek daughter of the goddess of the harvest, Demeter, who was abducted by Hades and taken to the Underworld. Demeter was so distraught by her daughter's capture that she struck up a deal with Hades to split Persephone's time between Olympus and the Underworld. The myth was thought up to explain away the season. In winter the crops would wither and die due to Demeter's prevailing sadness at her daughter's departure. In spring when Persephone returned to her, the crops would bloom and grow.

_'The way they see it, I cross back and forth over the divide. One moment here, the next moment there. But they're wrong.' _

Edward had never given thought to what Daniel's existence must be like. All of his efforts had gone into making the student's life a little easier, something he felt he owed him after all the grief he got for the past two years. Being one of the people Daniel revealed himself to in Antarctica, Edward had taken it upon himself to ease what little of Daniel's responsibility he could. But he'd never thought that perhaps the responsibility itself wasn't the hardest part of Daniel's life.

_'I'm never fully on one side of death or the other. Even in life I carry death in me. And in death I carry life.'_

"You still reading that same paper?" Ron grumbled from behind Edward's shoulder. "You've been on the same one for like twenty minutes, heh." Somehow he'd gotten up to get a cup of coffee for himself without Edward noticing. "Oh, Danny Fenton huh? Christ, that kid's about as bad as they come."

Edward furrowing his eyebrows in annoyance. That struck an angry chord in him, and he chose not to respond, instead continuing to read the paper for a third time.

_'They wave a hand in front of my face, snapping me back to attention. They tell me I've zoned out again. I wonder what they would say if I told them I wasn't staring into space. I was staring into the abyss again, just for a moment. I'm here, but part of me is there, dipping into the void. Part of me is always there.'_

"He's one of the ones who didn't turn in this week's paper," Ron rambled on, dripping a spot of hot coffee onto Edward's shoulder. He cringed but kept ignoring the history teacher. "He probably wouldn't have even known what to write anyway. He probably can't even name more than two Greek gods. He slept through class most of this week, and he wasn't even in class on the day they turned to assignment in."

_'When I'm surrounded by death, the walking antithesis to life itself, it's not hard to remember that I'm not truly one of them. I can see eternity in them. But me, I'll always return to the land of the living. If only for a short while.'_

"Really, out of all my students that Fenton kid tries my nerves the most."

Daniel Fenton had garnered something of a reputation among the staff at Casper High during his three years here as a problem child. Rumors spread around the students and made its way to teachers eventually, whispers of drug habits or gang involvement, of crazy cult practices or elicit criminal activity. It was all nonsense, but many of the teachers believed it, if only for lack of a better explanation for Daniel's behavior.

Of course there was a better explanation. But Edward Lancer couldn't exactly give that to the other teachers. There had been a time when he'd been in the same mindset as Ron was now, and his own shame mingled with the irrational anger he felt now at his colleague.

"Daniel Fenton may not be a grade A student but he is a remarkable young adult," he heard himself spitting at Ron. "Not everything can be measured by grades, which is one of the more unfortunate flaws of the education system in America," he added heatedly. He flipped the stapled pages closed quickly on a sudden impulse, wary of Ron's prying eyes. This was a paper that Daniel never would have written if he'd known someone other than Lancer would be reading it.

_'The hardest part of living between two worlds is that no one on either side is ever quite like you. Even surrounded by people who love you, you will always be alone.'_

"Maybe teachers like you should work harder to remember that," Edward said curtly as he gathered up his papers and his coffee and retreated from the teacher's lounge.

It felt wrong to give a paper this personal a grade, as if one could rate such a personal divulgence. But grade it he must, so when he passed back the papers in third period the following day, Daniel Fenton's had a fat A in green ink at the top of the page. He couldn't help but smile himself when he saw a grin spread across the student's face.

He hoped Daniel would smile again when he saw the note left at the end of the paper, a message scrawled in ink under Daniel's closing paragraph.

_'You may be different from those around you, and you may not be understood. But you are __never__ alone.'_


	16. Tangible

Time frame: Just over a month after the accident.

* * *

**Tangible**

x - x - x

"Yeah but did you see the color his face turned?" Tucker laughed, slapping his forehead in mirth. "It was somewhere between red and purple. And I swear I saw steam coming out of his ears. Worth it, dude."

"Speak for yourself," Danny replied listlessly. "You're not the one his fury was aimed at."

"Danny, it wasn't your fault," Sam droned in monotone, for the thousandth time since they'd left sixth period Chemistry. It was a mantra that had been repeated so often this past month by both Tucker and Sam that it had officially lost all meaning. Like when Danny was five and he used to repeat stupid words over and over like "door" and "tablecloth" until they didn't even sound like English anymore.

Danny threw his arms up in exasperation. "I _know _it wasn't! That's what makes it so annoying!"

"Chill out, Danny," Tucker said, sounding like he was only half paying attention. Danny glanced over and saw that Tucker's Tetris pieces were rapidly approaching the danger zone at the top of the screen. "At least Mr. Reynolds didn't give you detention this time. Just banned you from handling any and all glassware for the remainder of your high school career," he added with a snicker.

Danny jutted one foot in Tucker's path and grinned as his friend stumbled and caught himself, letting out a furious cry as a four-unit tall block effectively ended his game of Tetris in the moment of distraction. "Oh, very funny!"

Sam apparently thought so. But she fought hard to hide her laughter behind her hands. "Danny," she managed as her laughter subsided. "As beautiful as that moment was, Tucker's actually right."

"Say what?" Tucker responded, halting momentarily on the sidewalk as the three turned the next street corner. Those were Danny's thoughts exactly as they paused to look back at a skeptical Tuck. Danny raised one eyebrow at Sam.

Sam shrugged, clearly unwillingly to pay further attention to the words "Tucker" and "right" in the same sentence. "You have to relax. I know it sucks but you _are_ getting a better grasp on – "

She was interrupted by Tucker's mad burst of laughter. He nearly dropped his DS as he struggled to calm down. "_A better grasp ,"_ he gasped, a thin line of moisture forming in his eyes.

Danny rolled his own eyes dispassionately and started walking again, leaving Tucker behind on the street corner to laugh himself into a coma.

"Oh for the love of god," Sam muttered under her breath, falling in line next to Danny.

"Wait!" Tucker gasped, sprinting up to squeeze up in between Danny and Sam. "I'll be good I promise! Just – oh my god," he struggled to control his snickering, "you can't say stuff like that Sam. My sense of humor is _fragile. _You almost broke it!"

Sam opted to ignore him, elbowing him out of the way so she could talk to Danny. "_Anyway," _she continued, "You are getting betterat controlling it." Sam shot a look at Tucker, as if daring him to find another pun in her words. "It may not seem like it to you but it's obvious to us. It's been happening less and less every week. So no worries, okay? Soon this will just be a haunting memory and –" She paused.

Her eyes narrowed at Tucker suspiciously, who was on Danny's other side now. "What?" he said innocently through an evil grin. Danny _knew _he heard that, and now he was just messing with Sam for the hell of it.

Sam raised an eyebrow at Tucker expectantly, but his smile just grew wider. "You're really gonna let that one slip through your fingers?" she prodded dryly. Danny dragged his hand down his face in anguish, knowing what was coming.

"You mean like that beaker slipped through Danny's fingers?"

Danny glared daggers at a Tucker lost in his hysterics, before shooting a look at Sam. "You really walked into that one, Sam," he told her.

Tucker surfaced from his laughter long enough to say, "You mean like Monday when you accidentally walked through the wall into the girls' –"

"Enough, Tucker!" Danny and Sam both yelled at once. Tucker cowered away from them, but made no further attempt to sober up.

Danny turned back to Sam, trying to tune out Tucker. "I know I'm getting better control of it but it still blows. It better stop happening soon, before something really ridiculous happens."

"You mean more ridiculous than –"

At the looks on Danny and Sam's faces Tucker's jaw snapped closed, though his smirk didn't go away.

"I mean yesterday morning I woke up on my way phasing through the _basement floor. _The basement floor! Lucky I woke up when I did. I mean can you imagine? I wonder how deep I could get sink without even realizing it." A shiver went down his spine at the mental image that summoned.

"Has that ever happened before?" Sam asked, stifled worry coloring her tone.

"No," he admitted. "I've woken up under my bed a few times but I've never sunk that far in my sleep before."

It seemed Tucker had finally gotten a hold on his giggles. "I wouldn't worry too much. Sam's right. If anything you're getting better at controlling the phasing dude. Soon enough this won't be a problem for you anymore."

"Yeah well, soon enough isn't soon enough," Danny grumbled, thinking about the beaker that had slipped right through his hand during sixth period. The tenth piece of chemistry apparatus he'd broken since the accident.

"It'll come sooner than you think," Sam said cheerily, hesitating at the bottom step leading up to her front door. "You sure you guys don't wanna hang out today?" she asked again, obviously dying for them to cave.

Danny groaned. "Of course I want to, but I _have _to do that math homework. I'm already so behind in that class because of everything I missed when I was out."

He didn't have to specify what he meant. They both knew he was referring to the week he missed a month ago, which his parents chocked up to 'shock' since he was 'physically unharmed' after the accident in the lab. In truth Danny could have gone to school. That is, if he wanted all his classmates to see various parts of his body phasing in and out of existence without his permission every couple of minutes. He hadn't even begun to get a handle on his control of that until the end of that first week.

"Mom said she actually wanted me home tonight," Tucker supplied. "Family dinner. She threatened me with taking away all electronics," he clarified. Danny couldn't say he was surprised. The three of them had spent virtually every evening the past month in each other's company, so it was no wonder his mother was getting annoyed with the lack of seeing her son.

"Alright," Sam sighed. She retreated up the steps and gave them a half-hearted wave as she unlocked her door. "Bye guys! Text me when you're done with your homework, Danny. Maybe we can meet up if it isn't too late."

"Sure, Sam. Later."

"Bye!"

Danny and Tucker crossed the street and rounded another corner, making their way to Tucker's neighborhood, which was the next closest. Of course, Danny could always just fly home from school if he wanted but he didn't have the heart to bail on the age-old tradition of walking home with his best friends.

"You need to get over this whole 'make fun of Danny' phase," Danny drawled at Tucker, who had unearthed his DS from a pocket and opened up Tetris again. "And oh my god if you say something about my use of the word phase I swear I'll –"

Tucker laughed. "Re_lax_ dude. You know I'm just poking fun."

"Yeah well there are a _lot _of idioms in the English language which include the word 'ghosts' and 'dead' and 'phase' and if you keep on giving me grief every time one of them is mentioned you are going to run me into an early – scratch that. God, it's like I'm doing your job for you," he groaned.

"I'll get over it sooner or later," Tucker laughed, mashing buttons madly. "It's just still so new to us. You can't blame me for the jokes. They slip out before I think them through properly."

"You have no filter," Danny observed.

Tucker shrugged, and said "YES!" as an L-shaped Tetris piece clicked into place and three rows vanished at once and saved him from losing.

Danny grabbed Tucker's shirt sleeve to stop him from walking out into the street as they reached the crosswalk. He was focusing so intently on the screen he nearly walked in front of a moving minivan. Danny nudged him forward to cross after the van had passed.

"That's kinda scary what you were saying about the basement, though," Tucker mused at his game.

"What?" Danny said distractedly, thrown by the change of topic.

"What you were saying before, about almost phasing through the basement floor in your sleep. That's freaky. I can't even imagine waking up underground. Yikes."

"Yeah," Danny agreed noncommittally. Another shiver ran through him. He didn't _ever_ want to know what it would feel like to wake up underground.

They lapsed into silence as their beat-up sneakers slapped against the sidewalk concrete, echoing down the alleyways they passed. Danny listened idly to the cars rushing past and the tinkling Tetris theme coming faintly from Tucker's DS.

"Hey Danny?" Tucker said suddenly as they approached his apartment complex. He snapped his DS closed and peered up at Danny with a strange look in his eye. "You ever wonder what would happen if you turned tangible while you were still.. you know. Still.. partway through something?" He cringed as he said it, one hand shoving his DS into his pocket. The uncomfortable expression on his face plainly said he wanted to take back what he'd just said.

Danny blinked at him, taken aback by the question. "Uh.. yeah, actually. Yeah. I have wondered that." He should have known Tucker would be wondering the same exact thing. Tucker was always running on the same wavelength that Danny was.

"Maybe that wasn't cool of me to ask," Tucker said reluctantly, dropping his gaze. "I mean I don't.."

Danny watched Tucker's expression change several times, and he could tell Tucker was running through the possibilities the same exact way Danny had. He watched his expression get darker and darker as the possible scenarios got worse and worse, and Danny decided to intervene.

"You uh.. you think I should try it?" Danny suggested.

Tucker's eyes widened. "You can't be serious!"

"I'm _dead_ serious," he shot back, wiggling his eyebrows. Hey, Danny could have a sense of humor too. Tuck might not be allowed to make fun of him, but he could sure as hell make fun of himself.

"That is a royally stupid idea," Tucker scolded, dropping his backpack off his shoulder onto the front steps of his apartment complex.

"It'll probably be fine," Danny assured him with a shrug.

"Key word: probably."

"Oh come on, Tucker. It'll be _fine_. What's the worst that could happen?" But even as Danny said it, he fought against the involuntary cringe that snuck up. Danny dropped his backpack by Tucker's and leaned back against one of the solid concrete half-walls that served for railing by the front steps. A glance up and down the street told him they were well alone. No one was within earshot or eyesight. "I'll just stick my hand in here," he said slowly as he rested his right palm against the cold concrete rail, "and turn it tangible. Just for a second. We'll see what happens."

Tucker still looked majorly skeptical. "I really think that's a bad idea," he moaned, watching Danny's hand warily like it was a cobra about to strike him. "We have no idea what could happen, Danny!"

Danny grinned at Tucker and began to phase his hand into the wall.

"WAIT!" Tucker yelled, and Danny pulled his hand out simply because of surprise at Tucker's tone. Tucker winced apologetically. "If you insist on trying it you should at least uh.. at least use your left hand, bro."

"Why?" Danny asked stupidly. _Duh_, he thought after he said it.

"Because.. you're right-handed," Tucker said slowly. He looked like he was trying to swallow a softball. "Plus, you already have that sprained pinky on your left hand, so… just in case..."

_In case you injure yourself, let's make it the hand that's already been injured. Thanks, Tuck._

Danny rolled his eyes. Tucker _was_ right, of glanced down at his left hand. It was funny, he kept completely forgetting about the splint wrapped around his left pinky finger. He would have thought that impossible, seeing how the jocks at school made fun of it. A 'wuss injury' Dash liked to call it. But Danny did keep forgetting all about it, mostly because he couldn't feel it at all. It wasn't just that he couldn't feel the pain. He couldn't feel the finger. Not in the slightest.

"Okay," Danny acquiesced, and pressed his left palm to the chilly concrete this time. He could practically feel Tucker's apprehension radiating from him. He bit his lip as Danny phased his hand into the wall up to the wrist.

There was a very heavy pause in which they were both silent.

Then, Danny's eyes went wide as saucers and a strangled gasp clawed its way out of his throat.

"Danny?" Tucker cried, lunging forward towards him.

"_Gahhh!" _

Danny's face screwed up in agony, and no words came out. He fell to his knees on the hard unforgiving steps with Tucker grabbing at his shoulders.

"I knew this was stupid!" Tucker yelled desperately over Danny's strangulated sobbing noises. He yanked on Danny's shoulders, trying to pull him away from the wall, but no amount of pulling on Tucker's part could free Danny's hand from its place submerged in the concrete.

"Oh god oh god oh god, what do I do?" Tucker's face was the picture of anguish. "I'll call Sam! She'll know what to do–"

It was as Tucker let go to reach for his cell phone that Danny could no longer contain himself. It was the Sam comment that did it. It was always _so funny _to see Tucker or Sam knocked off their high horse and asking the other for help. But as Tuck reached for his pocket Danny burst into a rightful fit of laughter.

"Oh man," he gasped, pulling his left hand from the concrete with complete ease. "Oh _man_, I wish you could have seen your face!" He collapsed the rest of the way to the ground, clutching his stomach as he cackled at Tucker's stricken expression, one thumb still poised over the 'call' button on his phone.

"You – you dick!" he finally managed to splutter, backhanding Danny on the shoulder. "That was so not cool!"

Danny wiped away imaginary tears from his eyes and pulled himself back to his knees. "That was payback, for all those stupid jokes you've been saying _all month," _he said with a slap-happy grin.

"Message received, loud and clear," Tucker grumbled, folding his arms in a huff when Danny reached out for a hand up from the ground.

Danny just chuckled and pushed himself to his feet. "If it makes you feel better, I did actually try to turn my hand tangible," he added.

"You did?" Tucker said, his momentary surprise causing him to forget he was still sulking.

"Yeah," Danny shrugged. "It didn't work. Couldn't turn tangible."

Tucker sighed. "Ah well, that's good to know I guess. At least you won't have to worry about floating underground and turning tangible in your sleep," he joked, grabbing his backpack from behind Danny. "I'll get you back for that," he added with a menacing tone as he headed up the steps. "I'll be online later if you wanna get on and massacre some zombies."

"Kay," he said, waving at his best friend. "See ya, Tuck."

"Later, Danny."

After Tucker disappeared down the hall toward the far staircase, Danny glanced up and down the street. Still deserted. So he crouched down to grab his bag and let the cold wave of the transformation wash over his body, and shifted into invisibility before soaring into the air.

He was still extremely wary, so he transformed back a full block away from his house before finishing the trek home.

At the very least, he hadn't seen any ghosts about today. Things had been mildly quiet since the whole 'lunch lady' fiasco a week prior. There'd only been one ghost pestering the school since then, and he was daring to hope this meant the ghost visits were on the decline. He _really _needed to focus on his schoolwork, as he was still making up for missing that whole week of school right after his accident.

So he reluctantly sat at his computer desk and pulled his math textbook out of his backpack. He might as well get it over with.

He flipped to page 98, where today's set of problems were located. He scanned down the page for problem 6, and immediately cringed. In the very center of the page was a small, misshapen red circle. Blotched and spotty, deep crimson red. Like a tiny grim caricature of the dot art his fourth grade art teacher made them do with markers. The paper was wrinkled there, like it had been wet at one point.

His stomach flipped over on itself and he blanched at the page.

Tentatively, he flipped to the next page. The same uneven blotchy circle was there, in the same place. He fanned through the next three chapters, watching the red dotted circle mark every single page. The textbook fell closed with a slap, and Danny thought for sure he was going to be sick.

He brought his hands up to his face as he tried to calm himself, and the hard splint on his finger poked against the bridge of his nose. For a moment he stared at it like it was completely foreign to him, and then abruptly he phased it off of his finger.

The skin there was dotted and mottled unhealthily, much like the skin of an elderly man. The splint wasn't for a break. He'd never sprained it, though he'd told his parents and friends that when they'd asked about the splint. It was really there covering what his finger _looked _like. Some of the spots on the skin were redder than others, fresh reminders of the stupid stunt he tried last night. When every pore on his finger had bled for a moment.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. He'd been so curious. After all, waking up that morning halfway through the basement floor really _had _scared him. What if he _did _turn tangible while partway through something? Or _all the way _through something. Something like the ground. He couldn't say he'd never wondered, and he really couldn't stand not knowing the answer any longer. So after he was done with his math homework last night, after a moment of contemplation he had phased his left pinky finger into the center of his closed math textbook and then turned it tangible on purpose.

To his credit, at least he didn't scream. The last thing he needed was damage control with his family. He could probably divert them, after all he was getting miles and miles of practice at lying these days. But it's harder to lie when you're in pain.

And the _pain_ – who knew so many nerve endings could fit into one finger? It felt like someone was peeling the skin from it, like someone was exploding it from the inside, like someone was burning it in molten lava. He'd only turned it tangible for a moment. One long, agonizing moment. But it was enough.

Lucky for him, all the pain stopped as soon as he phased it out and turned it tangible again, separate from the book. One day later, he still couldn't feel anything past the base knuckle in that finger. Tentatively he curled his hand slowly into a fist. His pinky responded, albeit slower than the rest of his fingers. He uncurled them again, watching the injured finger with detached and morbid fascination. He wondered if he'd ever have feeling in this finger again.

Reluctantly he opened up his math textbook again, wondering how he was going to explain those red dots to Tucker, who sat next to him in math.

He would think of something to say. He always thought of something to say.

* * *

OH MY GOD when I started this it was seriously going to be a funny piece, I SWEAR. I tried so hard. I'm SO SORRY. But I'm not sorry though.

Anyway I hope you liked this. I'm actually really proud of somehow being able to turn the tables like that and change the mood so drastically. Not something I normally do. Let me know your thoughts. :)


	17. My Old Friend

This is probably the most AU story I've ever written. Hope you guys like it. It's substantially longer than the rest of these one shots but I felt like it still belonged here for some reason. As of now I have no plans to prequel or extend this story.

P.S. The opening quote is from Simon and Garfunkel's song "The Sound of Silence."

* * *

**My Old Friend**

x - x - x

Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again.

Paul Simon (1964)

x - x - x

Danny falls a few steps behind Dr. Raymond, taking the opportunity to glance to his right. The wall there is more window than wall, only glass dividing the interior white stainless world and the clouded dark sky. He drinks it, breathes it, stores it for later. He memorizes the way the greying clouds fall over the dark patch he knows to be the mountains. The halo extending out from the nearly full moon, refracting on distant airborne water particles. The glowing ring means rain is not too far off. Danny tucks this sky into a pocket deep in his mind. He knows he will want it, later.

He catches sight of himself in the window.

White fabric folding over his limbs, black gloves stretching as he flexes his right hand into and out of a fist instinctually. It throws him off, seeing the uniform on him in his human form, seeing the colors in their original state, before the world inverted. But the reflection in the glass shows confidence, ease. Somehow he manages to look more at home in the uniform than Dr. Raymond ahead of him.

He wonders when he will next look into a mirror, and the look of confidence flashes with something else as the window abruptly cuts off at the end of the long corridor.

"Ah, room two twenty," Dr. Raymond says. The balding doctor turns to Danny and motions him to proceed on his own. "Dr. Rosa should be ready for you, Mr. Gordon. " He extends a hand to Danny, a wan smile lighting up his face. "She doesn't bite," he added, sizing up Danny's expression.

"I might," Danny tells him, and Dr. Raymond chuckles.

"It was a pleasure meeting you Gordon, and I'm sure it will be as pleasurable working with you."

Danny takes the hand offered and shakes it before entering Room 220.

"Mr. Kyle Gordon?" A curvy woman swivels in her chair away from the monitor, standing to face Danny.

"Guilty as charged," he lies. "They sent me to do my blood work?"

"Yes, exactly," she agrees, flipping a paper over on her clipboard. The top of her head just barely comes up to Danny's shoulders. He can never get used to seeing people dressed in his uniform, seeing the way it fit onto them. The way they wore it so casually. He wonders what Dr. Rosa would do if a ray of ectoplasm was speeding toward her, if she would know which way to dodge to gain the advantage of attacking immediately thereafter, if she knew the way ice stuck to the coarse fabric, if she had ever felt a cage of ice constricting her chest like that.

He's sitting on a cushioned leather chair, feeling like he's at the dentist, or the doctor's. In truth he hasn't been to a real doctor since he was sixteen years old. He glances at the tidy papers held by her clipboard, knowing they're likely the forged ones. Vaccinations, check-ups, physicals he never got.

"You ready, Mr. Gordon?" she asks him. Her eyes search his face listlessly, and he knows she's just putting on a show of bedside manner. She's poised over his arm (now devoid of a glove, white sleeve folded up) with a sharp needle, and the tip of it catches a flare of the blaring lights overhead.

"Give me just a minute," he tells her, allowing some disturbance to creep into his voice. He gulps and closes his eyes. Let her think he is nervous, that he fears needles.

He focuses on the cold surging in his veins, on the pool of liquid fire in his chest. His breaths slow he feels the fire sparking, lighting, condensing. If he opened his eyes now, Dr. Rosa would see the burning in his irises. He wonders whether she would scream. Danny calls back the buzzing feeling in his limbs, drawing it inward, curling in on himself without ever moving. He coils inward like a spring, and any moment all that potential may go flooding back outward from his core.

"I'm ready," he says, and only someone paying close attention would have caught the strain, the hitch in his tone.

The needle draws his blood from the soft underside of his left forearm. It's one place on his body that's managed to stay unscarred. Once the sharp prick is gone, the needle removed, he finally lets out his breath. With the release of air his coiled energy is released as well, and it rebounds into the tips of his fingers and toes. He doesn't open his eyes for several more seconds, waiting for the feeling to die.

When he does, he sees her looking closely at the sample of blood. His mind skitters for a moment, wondering if it truly worked, but then he looks at it too. A tiny tube of deep crimson red. None of it is sparkling, glowing, none of it coalesces into shining patterns. It looks promising, but he can only hope that there are no trace amounts to be found.

She wraps a cold strip around his bicep and begins to measure his blood pressure. He's thinking about how this is the first time in years that he's seen his own blood when it wasn't forced from him in one way or another. Maybe the last time it happened was the first time he was in this building, when they were taking the blood work and vitals of Daniel Fenton the intern and not Kyle Gordon the engineer. Nobody recognizes him now of course. The last six years have wrought a world of change, and no one knows that better than Danny.

The only person who remembers the stammering eager intern who didn't have to consciously force ectoplasm away from the vein being harvested is Danny. His only problem then was proving himself to the superiors. Too bad he only lasted a week. They say curiosity killed the cat, but Danny had never heard of a cat whose curiosity had backfired as much as his own did that day.

Dr. Rosa sends him on to Room A161. It's the first sublevel. He catches one glimpse of the night without through the glass as the elevator descends into the ground. The halo of light is gone, and he can see the barest hint of the moon behind a rolling cloud. He thinks he sees Venus near the horizon as the last slice of sky vanishes.

The grizzly man at the desk looks like he eats spiders for breakfast, and likes it. When he looks up from the computer screen his frown says 'this had better be damned important.'

Danny grins toothily at him. "I'm the new recruit. Just got my blood work done." He hands over the stapled packet of paper Dr. Rosa had given him. "I think I'm scheduled for a tour?" He says it as if it's a question, when it's really just a statement.

"Yes," the man agrees. His shoulders are broader even than Danny's father's, and that has to be some kind of record. He also wears the white uniform Danny wears. It's positively comical on him. "You've been assigned to Agent Elmer for your tour of the facility."

Danny keeps all emotion from his face. "Brilliant," he remarks without sarcasm. "Where can I find him?"

But the man is already dialing an extension on the cordless phone. He has a rough, biting conversation with the recipient of the call which Danny tries to pretend he isn't listening to. After a moment a tall gangly man emerges from one of the closed doors in the back of the office.

The grizzly man grunts at Elmer, but then suddenly stands and mutters a word of greeting, and if Danny weren't so nervous he would bust a gut laughing at the change in demeanor. He understands why when he turns and sees a slender woman approaching from an office from down the narrow corridor in front of the man's desk.

"Hey Searg," she trills. Her voice is like smooth golden honey, out of place in the sharp lines of this office, of the angled tiles and crisp corners. "Hey Elmer. Is this the new recruit?" she asks.

"Sure is," Searg replies. "Mr. Gordon here is scheduled for a tour with Elmer."

"Elmer, I'm sure I must have misheard," the woman said, surprise alighting on her face. "You're taking a recruit on a tour when you haven't even finished your weekly write up?"

Elmer's bulgy eyes narrow at her, his lips pursing into a thin line. "There are no other certified training faculty on right now," he seeths. "So yes, I'm taking him."

"Surely they told you? I've been certified for weeks now." Her smile seems to reek sarcasm.

Elmer sputters at her. He looks livid, like she's caught him playing hooky from school. "I'm already scheduled to take him," he manages. "Tell her, Searg."

Searg just shrugs. "Well Elmer, your weekly write-ups have been late the past two weeks. I'm afraid she's right."

Danny tries to hide his triumph but apparently he doesn't do very well, because Searg is eyeing him knowingly. "Besides, young Gordon here looks like he'd rather go with the lovely lady." Danny swallows hard and laughs it off as Elmer storms back to his office. "So, your first tour eh?" he directs at the woman.

She shrugs, her short dark braid bunching up on her left shoulder. "I've been trying to get Palmer to let me tour new recruits for months," she explains. "Finally got them to certify me. I never knew it was such a coveted position. I swear these old guys just like showing off for the younger recruits."

"They wouldn't deny that," Searg admits, and he pauses for a moment as his eyes flash up and down the woman before seeming to remember Danny's presence. "Well, kid, she'll be taking you on your tour today I suppose. Good luck," he shoots at her with an accentuated wink as Danny follows her from the office. Danny resists the urge to freeze the man's eyelids shut.

He watches the way her hips move side to side as he follows her. He never thought of the belt on the uniform (_his_ uniform, it was impossible to think of it as otherwise) as sexy before, but the way it tilts just slightly off-kilter on her hip is enough to make him nearly walk directly into her when she stops without warning to slide her ID at a number pad before a set of wooden double doors. His own ID wouldn't get him any deeper than ground level, not until after he'd been completely cleared and inaugurated into the agency.

She doesn't say anything as she leads him down the hall, her black boots tapping lightly on the tile. His footsteps sound deft, silent like a hunter's. Hers sound poised, frozen like a deer's. She leads him through a bustling assortment of agents and laborers, and as much as he is interested in what the other agents are doing, he can't take his eyes off the woman's dark hair. The way it looks disheveled and kempt all at once. He wonders what it would look like spread out against a cotton pillow, what the skin on her bare stomach skin might look like under a pool of stars.

Nobody looks twice at the two of them as they round corners. She doesn't glance back to make sure he's following. Danny wants to say something to her. He doesn't.

They step into the spacious cylindrical elevator behind two white suits and the doors close behind them with a soft whir. Danny stands awkwardly in the corner, letting her do all the small talk. Turns out she knows one of the agents.

"Yes, yes, it's my first tour," she admits to them. "I was thinking of going from the bottom, up. Wish me luck!" she says, and they do before getting off on sublevel C.

Suddenly they are alone in the elevator.

He catches her bright eyes for the first time since they left Searg's desk. He takes an uncertain step toward her, but her eyes shoot upwards toward the small black dome in the corner. Danny has to consciously remind himself not to glare at it.

"Don't worry. The cameras can watch us but they can't listen," she says to him. She faces away from the security camera when she speaks.

"Sam," he breathes, and he doesn't know why he says it. He just wants to. His arms are itching to move to her, so he shoves his hands in his pockets.

A smile catches the corner of her lip. "Are you scared?" she whispers, though no one can hear her but Danny.

He opens his mouth to lie but she chooses that moment to turn her wide eyes on him, her drilling gaze. How can someone look so afraid and so fearless at once? "Yes," is all he says.

She bites her lip and blinks rapidly, like she's shaking invisible tears. If someone is watching the footage, maybe they'll think she's flirting with him. But he knows that look. It's the look she gets when he's going somewhere she can't follow. He wants to wipe it off her face with more than just words. With hands, with lips, with breath.

So Danny says nothing, because there's nothing he can possibly say.

He offers her a smile instead, and it's genuine. He wonders if she knows that no one has ever really seen this smile but her, the one he doesn't even know he has until he sees her face light up when she finally gets his joke, or when she does that mad scramble to put on pants when he comes to her apartment and wakes her in the middle of the night to patch up his latest scratch. She's looking away now but he stares at her, memorizing the way her eyes curve, the freckle on the side of her nose. He wonders why he never told her about the smile.

She returns his smile.

He would have gladly spent eternity in the elevator, but when it opens on Sublevel F barely any time has passed.

"Check station," Sam says as they step out, and her voice sounds clinical and detached again. The familiarity is gone.

He follows her through a series of metal arches, winding past uniformed guards. Sam greets some of them by name, and Danny doesn't bother trying to remember the names of the ones Sam introduces him to.

Apparently the machines and monitors clear him and Danny almost laughs when the guard at the end tells him he's clean as a whistle, but doesn't. They swipe is identification in the computer and hand it back roughly along with the plastic tub containing their gloves and belts and boots at the end of the conveyor belt.

He wonders what the guard would say if he knew how unclean Danny really was.

"Now down to sublevel R," Sam announces to no one in particular as she leads Danny to a new set of elevators.

Again the doors close, and again they are alone. The space separating them feels like an electric field to Danny. It feels like the space between two magnets.

He takes the moment to breathe deeply and he closes his eyes. He conjures up the image of the moon outside, of the way the stars poked through the frayed patches of clouds. He conjures up the image of Sam, shapes her face in his brain like clay. He makes sure he knows every freckle, every loose tuft of hair breaking free, every laugh line. When he opens his eyes she's still looking at him, unabashed.

Neither of them are smiling any longer. There's that look in her eyes that he's seen before, the one he never knows how to answer. He knows she wants to say something, but can't. It's something that can't be said with words. He knows this because he feels it too. The security camera in the upper corner feels like an intruder, a voyeur. He wants to rip it out of the ceiling.

They arrive at Sublevel R and step out into a heavily populated atrium. Nobody affords them any attention as they make their way under the luminous chandelier toward the main desk. A quick check of their IDs is all it requires, and Danny gets the feeling (not for the first time these past few weeks of lying) that it's just too easy. He's still waiting for the ball to drop, poised at all times. His eyes want to scan the new room as they are so accustomed to doing, finding possible points of escape. He doesn't do this now. He's going for casual, comfortable. Not paranoid.

One agent greets them at a hall leading off the right of the vaulted atrium, and motions for Danny and Sam to follow his lead. They pass door after sealed metal door, each more formidable than the last. The cacophonous whine of engines pulses behind one door marked "Dangerous: Authorized Personnel Only." Everything is almost exactly as he remembers it from six years ago. Last time he walked down this hall he felt as if he were walking the stage to get his diploma. Now it feels like a death march, the muffled rap of their boots on the cold tile like snare drums following him up the steps to the gallows.

He smiles wryly to himself at the mental image. It's too ironic. He _had_ been walking to his death that first time and didn't even know it. But now it feels like he's walking to his death when he knows for a certainty he isn't going to die. What his sister would have to say about the implications of that? Jazz could pry meaning from anything, and this one was just ripe for the picking.

The image of Jazz swirled up in front of him, her fiery hair, always a little more curly than she liked it to be, always pushed away from her eyes with a headband. The last crushing hug she'd given him before he left her office that afternoon. He filed the warmth of her hug away with the moon and Sam's eyes.

The hall slopes downward and turns into a staircase of stainless steel. The lights here are the same but dimmer somehow, as if they're all descending into an old mine. The silence is pressing, and it feels like they're trespassing. They stop passing other agents. When they arrive at the bottom of the staircase, the guard knocks loudly at a sealed door on the left side of the hall.

When the door opens their guard blinks in surprise. "Oh, good evening sir!" he snaps to attention and salutes. "I'm sorry, sir, are we due for an inspection..?" The guard looks uncertainly from Danny and Sam to the short man in the doorway, like they'd caught him with his pants down.

The man just laughs. "No no, nothing like that. At ease, Agent Carlson," he adds as an afterthought. The man acquiesces comfortably. "I was just doing my monthly rounds," he explains, "and Dr. Johnston looked like he hadn't slept in two days so I sent him home. I'm finishing out his shift for him."

"That's awful.. nice of you, sir," the guard says, obviously at a loss for what to say. He looks confused, that such an amiable gesture could come from one of the higher ups. He eyes him warily. "Well, sir, Dr. Manson here is scheduled to tour Mr. Gordon through the facility."

"Ah, I see," the man replies, beaming at them. "I can take it from here, Agent Carlson."

"Thank you, sir," he says, giving another firm salute before retreating back down the hall.

The man watches him go before emerging fully from the office door. He's one of the only people Danny's seen that isn't wearing the white and black uniform. This man wears a stark white suit, decorated with several colored badges on the right hand side. The very appearance of him marks him immediately as a superior officer in the agency.

"Come on," Tucker says, affording a quick glance at his wristwatch. "You guys are almost late," he adds as he leads them further down the hall, and down another half-flight of steps.

"Am I ever _not _late?" Danny wonders at him. He thinks he sees the Tuck's shoulders quiver as he chuckles, but he can't be sure. Danny eyes the security cameras lining the hall warily.

The hall ends and Tucker swipes his ID to get them into a wide room. The walls and floor and ceiling here are all reflective metal. A delicate rail frames a narrow path that leads up to the middle of the room, raised on a dais, like a centerpiece. Displayed like a statue in a museum. Danny scans the various contraptions scattered on the shelves around the room, at their blinking lights, their confusing structures. He only knows what a handful of them do at a glance.

There in the corner is the small rover built to collect data. He can still remember Tucker's face when he told him for the first time. The agency sent it in for a day long mission and it had come back two weeks later. The data relayed that it had indeed only been gone for a day, by the rover's time. Danny tears his eyes from the dormant piece of equipment.

"We have a couple of minutes," Tucker says, checking his watch again. "The disruption in the cameras is due at 8:32 exactly. They'll be offline for a full two minutes. That should be more than enough time."

Danny nods absently, allowing his eyes to be drawn finally to the centerpiece in the room, the marvel on top of the raised dais. A spectacular looping metal framework descended from the ceiling. He didn't understand the mechanics of it back then, and he doesn't understand it much better now. He doesn't think the agency fully understands it, this dangerous, dangerous thing they keep in their basement. The fire he'd started inadvertently the day he died.

That day the metal framework had been empty, dark. The air had felt dead like the inside of a cave before he'd activated it by accident, one careless mistake that changed him forever.

Staring at it now, he can't imagine it dark again. It looks like a captured star, like a microscopic supernova. The light is brightest at the center just around an impenetrable black center, churning like the core of a galaxy, sucked endlessly into the black hole in the middle. It shoots out flares of light, flickers and tendrils of energy, sparking away to the edges of the sphere, licking at the metal frame that holds it.

The room is silent, but he's sure he can hear the way those tendrils flared out, but he hears it with his veins, if that makes any sense. Icy raw energy pulses through him like molten lava, responding to the massive wave of energy pounding at him from the center of the room.

A glance at his own watch says he's running out of time. He turns to his two best friends. "Guys…" The words don't come. Instead his mouth feels dry, his throat suddenly tight.

"It's okay, Danny," Tucker supplies. He shoves his hands into his pockets, and the gesture looks strange on him. He looks like the kid Danny went to school with, and not a trained high-ranking agent. Danny fights off a grimace, knowing it's futile to wonder what career Tucker would have chosen if not for Danny. What career Sam might have chosen. Danny never had a way with words, but now he wishes he had made it more clear exactly how much their sacrifices meant. "We already know what you're going to say."

Danny gulps and nods, not trusting himself to speak. All week he'd felt the pressing need to tell them exactly what they meant to them. But he couldn't bring himself to, because it felt far too much like goodbye. And he planned on seeing them again. When, he didn't know. He tried not to think about that rover, the one who time had run away from. But he _would_ see them again, and they knew it. Looking at their faces now, he knew they understood.

They scale the path together, Danny trailing his gloved hand absently on the metal railing. There's almost nowhere Danny goes that Tucker and Sam don't follow. He stops at the end of the railing, and the cameras probably just see a new recruit in awe. Tucker told him every new recruit looked like that the first time they saw the Portal.

"One minute, Danny," Tucker warns. Danny memorizes the rich reassuring sound of his voice, unsure when he will hear it again.

Suddenly he yearns to hear Sam's voice too. As he looks at her he remembers the way her forehead felt pressed against his chest last night, the way her tears felt through his warm cotton shirt. She never let people see her cry, so she'd compromised by burying her face into him. He didn't stop stroking her hair for hours.

There hadn't been words then, and there aren't any now.

"Sam," he says, and again he doesn't know quite why he says it. "Tucker," he adds, flashing his best friend a smile more confident than he felt. "I _will_ be back, okay?" It's all he can think to say. They all know they're just going to have to take him on his word.

"We know," Sam whispers forcefully, and those two words sound infinitely more confident than he'd felt all day.

"Time," Tucker says, eyes glued to his watch. "Two minutes, and counting."

Danny trusts Tucker's tampering with the system wholeheartedly. After all, Tuck helped design it. He doesn't even afford the security cameras a glance as he reaches in towards that icy core and opens the gates, letting it flood through him. White lightning crackles across his skins and he shifts, his white uniform traded for black, the black trim traded for white. He instantly feels more at home in this one, less unnatural. He's used to it, that's why. He only ever wore the white uniform for a week before his accident turned it black forever. He wonders if anyone in the whole agency ever recognized Phantom's clothes, ever realized it was just a G.I.W. uniform. It was just that the colors had been inverted when Danny's life got inverted.

Tucker reaches into his side cargo pocket and pulls out the thermos. It's encased in a thick layer of Danny's strongest ice, sealing the long glowing crack which runs down the side. He can't believe he left Tucker alone with it so long. Just looking at the ominous crack gives him shivers, even though its state has remained unchanged since Danny froze it. Danny clips it onto his belt gingerly, as if he might shatter it with one false move.

Not for the first time he marvels at Tucker's ingenuity. He never did explain to Danny how he managed to smuggle the dangerous thermos so deep into the facility. He logged the question away, eager to ask Tuck when he got back.

"One minute thirty," Tucker announces.

Danny glances anxiously at the swirling Portal before turning his back on it again. He's struck by a sudden idea and acts on it before he has time to think it through. A surge of energy descends down his arms and into his free hands, forming into two tiny swirls of incandescent lime light.

"What are you.." Sam's question trails off as Danny encases them in a thick layer of ice, leaving what looked like two crystal pendants with shimmering emeralds embedded in the center.

"Here," he says lamely, handing them over to his two friends. "This way you can, you know, keep an eye on me…" he loses momentum, unwilling to say the words. But he knows they remember the day Danny obliterated Pariah Dark from the map, the way the samples of Pariah's ectoplasm had disintegrated in his parents' lab when Pariah Dark was gone. Tucker and Sam look at the pendants in their hands with a mixture of hope and desolation. He hopes they never see the emerald light in there fade, but it's the least he can do for them. If the worst happens, at least they'll know. It's better than not knowing.

That's what he tells himself.

Tucker pockets the pendant slowly, and Danny's surprised to see his eyes glistening. "One minute," he croaks.

Danny's hugging him before Tucker finishes speaking. Crushing his head to Danny's chest. He wants to say you're like a brother to me, but Tucker already knows. So he just crushes him tighter. For once he doesn't make fun of Tucker for not following him in growth spurts after high school.

Danny lets Tucker think he doesn't see him wiping a tear as he moves toward Sam.

His brain never quite works properly around her. He'd gotten used to it, over the years. To the bumbling and the stuttering that came only when he tried to tell her something important. But now it feels like he'd never told her anything he should have, and everything he'd never said stood starkly between them. And for once, he doesn't have it in him to be coy about it, to be subtle.

His arms wrap tightly around her shoulders. She's the perfect height to fit her head in the crook of his shoulder, pressed like a puzzle piece against him. He presses his face into her hair, completely taken aback with how forward he's being right now. But she's far from complaining as she squeezes her arms around his waist like a lifeline.

For once, Tucker doesn't crack any jokes about the two of them.

"Twenty seconds," Tucker says urgently. His voice is subdued; he sounds reluctant to break them apart.

Danny presses a firm kiss onto the side of her forehead, the small space just next to her eye. He's going to make sure it's not the last kiss she gets from him. He puts all the words he didn't say into it, and he knows when he looks her dead in the eyes a silent understanding passes between them; he's going to say all those words when he gets back. He won't go through this again, the pain of not having explained what they meant to him.

When he lets her go he reaches into his mind and creates a rift, and split. It comes easily now, so infinitely easy compared to how hard it had once been. It's disorienting to stare into the eyes of his duplicate though, so they both look away from each other. He can see through the duplicates eyes in the back of his mind, like an extra radio signal butting in on another station that never goes away. Looking into his own eyes is like facing two mirrors at each other. It makes him dizzy.

The duplicate transforms, leaving a very human Danny standing at the edge of the rail. Back when he was still learning, he couldn't reabsorb his duplicates without touching them directly. It had taken over two years to master duplication, and another year beyond that to learn how to dissolve them from great distances. Human Danny (or Kyle Gordon, rather) would finish out his shift, go home, and quit his job the next day before Danny dissolved him. No one in the agency would ever know the difference.

Danny took one last desperate look at his friends, engraving their faces into his memory. The cracked thermos felt like lead weight against his side, like the burden of the world on his shoulders. He didn't know when he'd see them again, but he could do this. He would do this. He was the only one who could.

The swirling tendrils reached out to his hand as he lifted one up toward the pulsing light.

"Five seconds," Tucker said, his voice cracking.

When Danny first activated the portal, it felt like being torn inside out, like someone had lit his bones on fire, like someone was carving the neurons in his brain with an electric chisel. It felt like an impossible eternity squeezed into one second, and Danny was certain he'd died.

This time he knows he isn't dying, just travelling. But as he steps through the Portal, feels the cold rush of wind barrel through him like a gaping wormhole speeding him away to the land of the dead, he wonders if there is any difference.


	18. Blood

No, this story is not what you think it's going to be.

Time frame: Sometime in high school, unspecific.

* * *

**Blood**

x - x - x

Her window looks like Tucker's screensaver. After ten minutes of inactivity on his computer streaks of water, raindrops, drip down the screen. No. This is Sam's window, not Windows7. He blinks slowly, rain dripping down his forehead into his eyes. He can't tell if the world is actually this blurry or if it's just him.

He reaches his free hand to knock subconsciously, his other arm still clutching the side of his ribcage. In the hazy glow of the computer screen he can see green tainting his otherwise white glove.

Window, not screen.

In his distraction his fist knocks straight through the window and he tumbles forward, phasing into her room without Sam's explicit permission.

His first thought is: Well if I wasn't dead before, I am now.

Luckily he catches himself before he hits the floor, on his knees and his one free hand. Hitting his ribs on her carpet sounds like the least pleasant thing he could think of right now. Water drips freely from his hair, his face, pooling quickly on the carpet.

"Danny?"

For the first time he sees her, lounging in her computer chair, her feet folded under her like they so often were. Her legs are starkly bare, pale, some guy's face is on her baggy grey t-shirt. It looks like Eddie Van Halen. She would look even better in a black shirt, white DP logo on the front.

But now she's on her bare feet, closing the distance between them, supporting the weight of his shoulders. He realizes she's still speaking to him. "_What happened?"_ she repeats.

He tries to grin at her, but it comes out as a grimace. Her half-assed ponytail has half fallen out. Looking at it makes him want to tug the little band the rest of the way off. "Just Skulker," he says nonchalantly. "Sorry for not knocking."

She isn't listening to him. She's pushed him back on his ass now, forced him to sit against her wall. His head just reaches the windowsill, and the distant drill of raindrops thuds against his skull. "Just Skulker?" she mocks shrilly as she pries his arm away from the side of his ribs. "Jesus Danny…" She glances up and catches him staring at her. For once she doesn't blush, but says, "I'll be right back. Don't move."

He hears drawers slamming, the rustling of inner contents. She swears so softly he doesn't catch which swear word she uses. He likes it when Sam swears, especially in front of her parents. It's funny. He's tired. He closes his eyes, just for a moment. He's tired.

"Danny?" Her face is in front of his again suddenly. "Danny wake up!" Her face is the picture of fear, her eyes wide in alarm. But a bit of relief sweeps through them as he shakes his head to clear it.

He lets her strip away his white gloves, unzip the shirt of his HAZMAT suit. As she clicks open the dented first aid kit he watches his gloves evaporate from the floor. Next time he transforms new ones will decorate his hands. He can never escape his death, and the suit is a part of it as much as he is.

Sam sighs. "This isn't so bad as I thought it'd be," she breathes as she wipes away the glowing ectoplasm from his cold chest. She tucks away the roll of gauze and instead opts for the largest available band-aid, which barely covers it. "So where did all the blo.." she trails off.

Say it, he thinks. Blood. But it's not blood, is it? He can see the uncertainty in her eyes as she retracts her question.

To spare her, he pushes up the sleeve on his right arm, revealing the gash there. "Oh," she says.

She looks at it hesitantly, biting her lip as she weighs her options, contemplating the bandages and the gauze. He wants to bite her lip too. The lights in here are bright, too bright. He realizes the only light in here is coming from her computer screen. He can see blocky shapes moving, Minecraft still running. She never even paused.

"You should pause your game, the skeletons are gonna murder you.." he mumbles. She ignores him. He closes his eyes. White starbusts dance in the corners of his vision, and for a moment he thinks he's going to vomit.

Sam growls. "It's no use! I need to bandage it but I keep cleaning and cleaning and it never gets clean – there's just too much blood!"

There, she said it. She realizes she said, judging from the way she falls silent, and stops trying to wipe away the ectoplasm. "Sorry," she mumbles, almost inaudibly.

He snorts. The action sends a stab of pain through his ribs. "Don't be sorry. It's not your fault I'm a ghost, Sam."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Are you fucking stupid?" she says loudly. Too loudly. Clock on the wall says, woah, is it really 2:50? "It _is _my fault!"

"Christ, we are not going over this again," he spits back, louder than he'd meant to. Sam is as stubborn as a person could come.

"There's nothing to _go over," _she says venomously, still trying vainly to mop away the oozing green mess on his forearm, her touch much gentler than her tone. "It is what it is."

"Yeah yeah," he says absently, his eyes on her bookshelf, scanning the row of CDs. The one on the very end catches his eye. "I am he as you are me and.. wait, I forget how it goes." The urge to vomit is back.

She stops her motions and looks at him. "Does your computer have to be so bright?" he complains, and closes his eyes.

"Danny, are you okay?" she asks, all anger gone.

"Might.. throw up," he admits casually, halk joking and half serious. "Just a little bit."

She doesn't laugh, but instead her eyebrows furrow. "Did you hit your head?"

He frowns. "Might've," he mumbles. He watches the worry dominate her face and he feels immensely guilty. "Don't worry, I'll aim away from you if I barf."

Then, a sharp banging noise. Danny and Sam both jump out of their skin, and Danny breathes in sharply at the jolt in his side, the pounding in his head.

"Samantha, you have five seconds to open this door!" A familiar, irritating voice.

Sam's face whirls back towards Danny, but he's already flickered out of visibility like a lightbulb. Sam looks around for him wildly before reluctantly rising to open her door. A shock pulses through him momentarily. How did he not realize that she wasn't wearing any _pants? _If he wasn't intangible his mouth would have gone dry, his heart would have stopped.

Her smooth legs look almost blue in the wake of the computer monitor's light, and her oversized Van Halen shirt only reaches the middle of her hips, leaving the bottom of her grey underwear showing, little black hearts decorating them. He's never seen a girl in her underwear before (not in person anyway, regardless of Tucker's ideas involving Danny's powers and the girls' locker room) and he doesn't have any of the thoughts he'd thought he would have. All he can think.. is how cute they are. Sam wears underwear with little hearts on them.

And then he's back to being tired, so tired. Dizzy. He's worried he'll be able to keep up the invisibilty, so he slips through Sam's closet door as she opens up to two irate parents, both decked out in matching flannel pajamas.

"It's three in the morning, Samantha!" he dad shouts. "You should be in bed!"

"It's Saturday," Sam growls back. "You're lucky I'm even home."

"Don't speak to your father like that, young lady," her mom snaps. "And we heard voices in here! You had better not have any more late night visitors, Samantha. Is it that Fenton boy again?" She spits out Danny's name like a curse.

"No," Sam retorts, "There's no one here!"

Danny leans back against the interior of the walk-in closet, just next to the door, trying to steady his woozy mind. At least it's dark in here, so nothing looks blurry. He can hear the parents rifling through her room. Probably trying to find him.

He hears the closet handle jingle and he goes invisible just in time for her dad's eyes to pass over him. He leaves the door open a crack, and Danny can see his own unsteady hands in the light that squeezes through, once he turns visible again. His arm's still bleeding. Well, oozing. What's the difference, anyway? Blood is blood. Blood is blood to a human. Oil is blood to a car. Ectoplasm is blood to a ghost. Blood is blood is blood. Heh, when you say it so many times it doesn't even sound like a word anymore. But it is. It's just a word.

"So who were you talking to?" Sam's mom demands curtly.

"I was on Skype, talking to my friends while I was playing a game."

"You shouldn't be doing _any _of those things at this hour, missy."

"Samantha!" her dad screeches. "Do you know how expensive this carpet was? What on earth possessed you to open this window while it was raining?"

Danny groans inwardly, thinking of the puddle of water he'd left on her floor. And the – oh no.

"And what is _this?" _her mother exclaims shrilly. "What in god's name is this?"

Sam mumbles.

"What?"

"Nail polish!" Sam yells. "I spilled green freaking nail polish on the carpet, okay? _Sorry, _for having a goddamn accident!"

"This stain is never coming out!" her mom wails, and it sounds like maybe she really is crying. "To think how much we spent on this carpet!"

"Maybe you should have spent the money on something better," Sam snaps, "like personalities."

"That is it," her dad shouts. "Turn off that computer, and get your ass in bed. If you're going to behave like a child, we will treat you like a child. You're grounded."

"How long's the sentence this time?" Sam mumbles disinterestedly. Danny can imagine her staring at her nails, completely uncaring.

"Until further notice," her dad seethes.

"Don't even think about turning that game back on, Samantha," her mom intervenes. "We _will _be back in here to check on you." Danny hears her bedroom door slam.

A couple minutes pass before Sam whispers softly into the dark bedroom. "Danny?"

He sticks his hand through the tiny gap in the closet door and waves it. "In here," he whispers. Her soft footsteps come towards him and he sees her sit, leaning against the door. He wonders why it doesn't open all the way and then realizes his folded leg is blocking it. He smiles. She thinks she's leaning on a door but really she's just leaning on him.

It's dark now, the glow of the computer screen gone. But he's always been able to see pretty well in the dark, ever since the accident. He tries not to look at her bare legs though. Did she even notice that she never bothered to put on pants? The Sam he knows is overwhelmingly self-conscious about her body (though she would deny that emphatically, and kick him in the shins for saying it).

Of course, she'd been distracted. By all of Danny's blood. She was… so worried that she forgot to be embarrassed. Christ, that's adorable.

"I'm sorry about your parents," he tells her.

"Don't be," she whispers back quickly. "How's your head?"

"I dunno.. it's probably fine. Arm's still bleeding."

"I was thinking, maybe you could let me stitch it up." She pulls the first aid kit onto her lap and starts rifling through it.

He chokes a bit. "Have you ever.."

"No," she admits quietly. "But there's a first time for everything."

"Point taken." Besides, it's not like he can just walk into the ER. And they both know it.

He sticks his right arm back through the gap in the doorway again, resting it on her lap. If he was human he'd be blushing. Without his glove on it's just the skin of his hand on the skin of her upper, upper thighs. She pauses as his hand connects with her skin, looking down at it, and perhaps she's just finally realized that she isn't wearing pants.

Thinking he'd just been extremely, inadvertently rude, he retracts his hand but she grabs him by the wrist and brings it back. He winces as she threads the first stitch, but manages to stay quiet. He can't remember the last time he got stitches, let alone what it felt like. Turns out it's worse than getting cut in the first place. At least getting the gash was over quickly. This, this is just torture.

He hisses softly as she pokes too deep. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" she murmurs, distraught.

"Don't be," he murmurs back.

She looks up into his eyes for a moment and she looks exhausted. World-weary. But not just like she's tired, she looks like she's feeling his own tiredness for him. She looks like she wants to take the cut off his arm and put it on her own arm.

The moment passes, and she returns to her work. "We can't keep having this same conversation," he chuckles.

"What conversation?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry.. we're both just sorry, all the time. It's tiring."

She suppresses a laugh. "I guess you're right. I just.. I can't help being sorry." Her voice grows sadder at the end, forlorn.

"I know," he says. His forehead is at the edge of the gap in the doorway, leaning against the narrow edge of the door itself. Sam's head is bent, focused on his wrist. He still has the urge to tug out her ponytail. She hates that more than anything. He still does it though, all the time.

As she stitches him up, Sam continually glances over to her bedroom door warily. Every creak of the house makes them jump, expecting her parents to come barging through the door.

"How's your head?" she asks again, and he can hear the demand in her tone, the unmistakable 'don't you dare lie to me.'

"A bit fuzzy," he admits. It's more than a bit fuzzy.

"I'm scared you have a concussion, Danny.. You.. you can't go to sleep."

He sighs. "It's not like I ever sleep anyway."

She lingers on the last stitch, trying to figure out how to tie it off. Even once it's squared away, her hands linger, holding his arm like it's fragile, made of glass. He waits for disappointment, for her to push it away, but she doesn't.

"Stay here tonight," she whispers adamantly. "You need someone to make sure you don't sleep."

He blinks at her. "What about your parents?" he asks.

"I'll fake sleeping when they check on me," she assures him. "Besides, what's more important?" She leaves the rest of the question unvoiced. _Them, or you_? A warm trickling feeling pools in his chest, knowing her answer.

"Kay, but don't blame me when you get bored," he says.

Even in the dark, he can see her rolling her eyes. He can see the tiny green reflections glistening in the corners, the reflection of the light coming from his own glowing irises. With a start he realizes that he's all bandaged up, and thus nothing's keeping him from turning human again. He triggers the warm transformation quickly, and it sweeps through him like sweet relief. Like chugging a cup of hot chocolate after trudging home through the snow.

"Oh, and if you're gonna sit over here by me all night, maybe you should get a pillow. Or a blanket. Or.. some pants," he adds, grinning toothily at her through.

She coughs loudly to hide her splutter and blush, and does a mad scramble to get away from his line of sight. He fights a fit of laughter. Apparently, she hadn't noticed. After only a moment she comes back, and grumbles at him that her pants are inside the closet. He has half a devious mind to tell her she has to come in here and get them herself, but he good-naturedly passes her a pair of cotton pajama bottoms through the door.

"You coulda freakin said something," she mutters darkly as she retakes her spot leaning back against the door. She's closer to him this time, her face less than a foot away.

"I've been disoriented," he defends. "You know, head injury, gaping wounds. Your pants were the least of my priorities."

She mutters something else that sounds suspiciously like 'asshole.' But she doesn't sound very serious.

"Hey when you're done being mad at me, would you pass the wipes?" he jokes lightly.

"What for?" she asks.

"Still got some blood on me," he says truthfully. There's a bit of it dried on his forearm still, and it's bothering him to no end. The smell of it is making him more nauseous than the possible-concussion is.

"I missed a spot?" she demands, like he's questioning her ability to clean blood. "Give it here."

He obeys, sticking his now-human hand through the gap in the closet door once more. "Oh, right," she says. He can tell she's noticed its red now. It always turns red when he changes back.

"It's just blood," he says casually when she hesitates. It's always just blood, even when it's ectoplasm. For god's sake, she just stitched his whole arm up.

"I know," she snaps. "I'm not scared of blood."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

She stops then, staring straight up into his eyes. She breathes deeply, and then she says those stupid words again. "I'm sor–"

"No, don't be sorry!" he interrupts, reminding himself to stay in a whisper. "For god's sake, stop being sorry. You don't ever have to be sorry with me, Sam, don't you get that?' She looks taken aback, and she's stopped cleaning the blood from his arm. She's just holding it. "We shouldn't have to say sorry, when we already know…" He trails off, unsure what he's trying to say. Unsure how to phrase the fact that sorry doesn't matter when it's someone who matters so much. His mind is still foggy, clouded.

"I know, Danny," she says quietly, and she links her fingers into his. He curls his fingers around hers absently.

He looks into her eyes and she doesn't look away for the longest time. Usually one of them breaks eye contact within seconds, and when Danny does he knows he's trying to hide his blush. But now they just look, confidently, a strange emotion passing silently between them like an invisible thread.

When Danny thinks about Sam there are lots of words that swirl around, an infinite list of labels. Friend. Best friend. Girl. Stubborn. Vegan. Beautiful? Friend. Girlfriend? _Best_ friend. She's always changing, a force to be reckoned with, and he never knows _quite_ how to describe her, but he always has his options.

Now, all those options seem to die away, one by one by one, snipped like balloon strings and floating away into the dark. Her fingers in his, her eyes on his. In this moment he no longer has any words for what she means to him. There's an insuperable force here. In this moment she is closer to him than a friend, than a lover, than family. She is closer than blood.


	19. Typo

Time frame: Freshman year.

* * *

**Typo**

x - x - x

"Five minutes," Edward Lancer warned as he checked himself against the clock on the computer screen. Good thing he did, the computer clock read 2:14 while the one of the wall read 2:08. The school clocks hadn't been replaced in over twenty five years, and were about as timely as Daniel Fenton.

Speaking of Mr. Fenton, one glance down toward the back of the left-most aisle showed a certain student blinking slowly at his paper, his blurry eyes droopy and out of focus. Even during a crucial test, one that Edward had taken every chance to remind his class was worth ten percent of their final grade, Daniel could barely manage the concentration to stay awake. At the beginning of the school year, Edward had made it his personal goal to embarrass Daniel each and every time this happened, hoping to shock the freshman into staying alert during his class. But lately, it had begun to seem an utterly futile task.

Even as he watched, Ms. Manson kicked him as subtly as she could with the side of her clunky boots. That seemed to startle him into a slightly more aware state, and he bit his lip as he scrawled something swiftly onto his paper. But after that, his head slowly came down until it was resting on his chin. Edward sighed dispassionately as Daniel's eyes fluttered shut once more. He knew for sure the student was sleeping when his pencil fell from his grasp and rolled off the edge of the desk, pattering to the tile floor.

"Two minutes left in class," Edward warned once more. The sound of zippers and whispers began to fill the silence and Edward cut them off immediately. "But you will keep working until the bell," he said menacingly, "if you want the opportunity to continue this test tomorrow."

There were a few more dark mutterings but the sounds ceased, replaced once again by the soft scratching of a pencils. Normally Edward Lancer wouldn't _dream _of allowing students to start a test one day and finish it the next. He would laugh maniacally at the very suggestion. But in a school where attacks and disturbances were daily occurences, sometimes exceptions must be made. Boundaries must be stretched, to provide the best learning environment possible.

This week, there had been all manner of disturbances. More than normal, if that was possible.

So Edward hadn't been too surprised when about halfway through their English test, a dripping green ghostly elephant had come barreling through the classroom. Everything was chaos after that as students and teacher alike fled the rampaging spirit, dodging flying desks and backpacks.

Of course, Phantom had dispatched the ghost quite easily, luring it away to the far end of the hall where the two vanished through the wall into the cafeteria.

It had only taken a few minutes to get the room back in order and calm everyone down; after all, ghosts were so commonplace nowadays that life just went on once they were gone. It had to, if they were to get any work done around here. But all in all, they'd lost a good fifteen minutes of test time. Hence, Edward allowing them to finish up on the morrow. After all, he could be generous. When he wanted to be.

"You can begin packing up now," he relented, and was greeted with sighs of relief and anxious mutters. He began to file down the aisles, collecting marked up papers from the relieved students. When he got to Daniel's desk, he noticed that Sam Manson was still desperately trying to nudge him awake with her foot, not so gently as she was before. She had even returned his pencil to his desk by throwing it at him. Sam cast Edward a witheringly pitiful glance as she noticed his shadow fall across Daniel's sleeping face, and she abandoned her attempts to wake him.

Edward cleared his throat loudly, but it went unheard in Daniel's dreamland, fading into the chattering of the students that were exiting the classroom.

"Daniel," Edward said loudly. Instead of rocketing upright, startled but instantly alert, like he so often did, Daniel's eyes peeled open just a fraction of an inch. He looked up at Edward wearily, his eyes still completely out of focus.

Edward frowned at him. "Class is over, Mr. Fenton, and it's time to hand in your test."

Daniel blinked rapidly; it seemed the word _test _had a hold over him, if nothing else. He moved his folded arms from under his chin slowly, looking down at his exam as if he'd never seen it in his life. "Oh.." he said quietly. "Uhh.. mm'sorry," he mumbled.

Out of the corner of his eye, Edward could see Sam slapping her hand to her forehead, and he could see a certain Mr. Foley pretending not to eavesdrop as he packed his bag painstakingly slow on the other side of Sam.

"Here," Daniel said, not even bothering to look Edward in the eye as he held out the paper. It flopped over lazily. The kid looked completely downcast.

Once glance at the paper told Edward he had barely managed to answer any of the questions. It was no wonder, really, as Daniel had been the very last to wander back in after the ghost attack. All the other students were already hard at work trying to finish their tests when the ever-timely Daniel had finally made it back to the classroom. He didn't even have the heart to reprimand him as he pointed the student back to his desk in the now slightly skewed rows.

Edward hovered for a moment, before realizing Daniel had been gone for his announcement that the test would be continued tomorrow. And asleep for the reminder. He allowed a grin to creep onto his emotionless teacher-mask.

"Don't forget we'll be finishing this test up tomorrow, Daniel, since we were so rudely disturbed earlier." The student visibly brightened at that, but his eyes were still drooping, his shoulders drooping too. Edward couldn't help but wonder how many hours of sleep the poor kid had gotten this week. "So, I suggest you take advantage of the opportunity and study. And… try and get some sleep," he added with more than a hint of authority. _Get some sleep, damnit. _But it's not like he could force the kid to rest.

"Thanks," Daniel mumbled, "I.." he stifled a massive yawn, "I… will."

Edward started to walk away but stopped short and turned back to Daniel's desk. "Try to remember to put your name on your papers," he said with exasperation, and dropped the paper back onto Daniel's desk.

Daniel muttered something that was probably an apology, but it was garbled in his exhaustion. He leaned his cheek on one hand and scribbled his name in the top left corner without even opening his eyes. He didn't come anywhere near the space provided for the name. Edward rolled his eyes, and pretended not to hear the anxious whispers that began as soon as he left the three teens, now the last ones in the classroom, as he picked up the rest of the exams.

He went back to his desk, reveling in the fact that next period was his free hour. In other words, not a single student would set foot in his classroom during the last period of the day, leaving him free to grade, or whatever else he might need to do. Today he had planned on grading the tests, but since they were all only half done he would likely finish early and perhaps get a good round in on League of Legends before going home for the day.

After all, he wasn't _that _generous. The students might be able to finish what they hadn't gotten to tomorrow, but the answers they put down today would be graded as such. Generosity had to stop somewhere.

So he made his way through the papers, more than a few wrinkled due to being tossed around by the stomping, bellowing ghost animal.

When he got to Daniel's paper he almost snorted, but he sobered up pretty quickly.

There in the top left corner, written in worse handwriting than the rest of his paper, were the words "_Danny Phenton."_

Edward sighed. Maybe the boy was even more tired than Edward had given him credit for, because he'd never had a slip-up like this before. But then, there _had _been an abnormally large amount of ghosts about this week.

He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a number two pencil, gently erasing the "_Ph" _and replacing it with an "_F." _The last thing the poor kid needed to worry about was this. He could already see the look on Daniel's face if he handed back this paper and the kid saw what he'd written when he was half-asleep.

Edward could only hope he didn't accidentally pull the same stunt with another teacher, because Edward wouldn't be able to do anything to help.


	20. Stranger

**Time frame**: Senior year. (And this is kind going on the assumption of no PP.)

Also damn, I have no idea why this one got so long. It just did. And this is the first time I've written in the first-person past-tense since.. I can't even remember the last time. Crazy! I used to _only _write in this style. It feels like slipping into an old pair of shoes and finding that they still fit but you have to break them in again. It's bittersweet. Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

**Stranger**

x - x - x

I paused on the bottom step, shifting weight between my two feet. I was itching to fly, or sprint, or lay face down on the cool gray pavement. It was that time of year when everything started to smell like autumn. A warm smell, even though the air was biting. Like someone was always cooking something just around the corner.

The stream of students veered around me in a V formation. I was like a rock in a river. Some of them cast me furtive glances, thinking I wouldn't notice. I always pretended not to.

I couldn't remember the last time I was the only one of us three at school. Probably freshman year, that time Tucker drank out of Sam's water bottle and it turned out he had strep and they were both out for a week. God, was she pissed. School was tolerable when I had Sam and Tuck as a buffer. It was only when they were gone that I remembered what a truly lonely world I had crafted for myself.

My beaten converse made no sound against the cracked gray asphalt. My footsteps were so light I could sneak up on a rabbit in the dead of night, no problem. Another day I might have turned left at Borden Road to head toward the Nasty Burger, or else I'd be continuing straight down Flint walking homeward with Sam and Tuck. Or I'd be heading straight upward along a gust of wind, starting an early patrol. But today I felt like going nowhere at all.

I was never without at least _one _of my friends at school. It was actually funny how goody-two-shoes we all really were, considering what the teachers thought of us. (Truants, delinquents, criminals, what-have-you.) No, the truth was that we tried our damndest to be in class since we (namely, me) were so often deprived of the opportunity. We really _did_ _want_ to be there. Not that the teachers ever believed that one. Right up there with 'my ghost dog ate it' and 'I didn't do my homework because I was trapped in a net all night.'

So when I dropped in through Tucker's ceiling to snag him on my way to school this morning and found him throwing up, I'm ashamed to say I felt sorrier for myself than for him. He would get a day off school. Yeah granted, a sickly one. But at least he'd be home. The catch is that Sam was currently on a mandatory cruise with her parents in Alaska. So with Tuck out of the running, I would get a fun-filled day of self-enforced solitude and loneliness. Joy.

At least I could admit to myself what a shitty selfish friend I was being. That's gotta count for something.

To make up for it I phased quietly into his kitchen to snag him a fresh bottle of water from the fridge, and brought his laptop from the coffee table. Didn't matter. I still felt like a piece of shit, because I still felt sorrier for myself when I flew away alone toward Casper High.

Instead of going to Tuck's after school, or home, I walked north, which was a direction no student took home from school since it led past a district of abandoned warehouses and then straight into the woods.

These days when I traveled alone I typically defaulted into flying, for the ease and speed of it. But today I wasn't feeling it. The leaves crunching under my feet were comforting.

It was 3:19, which meant Amity probably wouldn't need me for patrol for a solid few hours. The heights of spectral activity came roughly in six hour intervals, peaking at 7am, just in time to make me late for school, 1pm, just in time to screw with my lunch hour, 7pm, just in time to keep me from having any sort of social life, and 1am, just in time to make sure I never got a proper amount of sleep. So I had roughly three hours to screw around things began to pick up pace in town.

The last warehouse on the left had broken boards nailed over shattered windows, drainage pooling around gutters at the base, paint long peeled away over gritty red bricks. It wasn't the worst but it was the last, the final salute to Amity Park as I disappeared into the thick woods. What a joke. The dirt crunched softly under my soles as I followed the incline, weaving between aspens and undergrowth. As I got higher I could look back and see Amity sprawling out below, like a tiny toy town. It looked skeletal. Frail. Everything looked frailer from high in the air, and I would know.

As I came upon a wide clearing, several blackened tree stumps in the middle, I realized with a jolt that it was familiar. Sam and Tuck and I used to come here train back in the beginning of sophomore year. I slowed, frowning at the gnarled stumps. They resembled charcoal more than wood. The ground here was dead. No grass, no insects even. The trees bordering the clearing looked half alive – the branches facing inward were curled and dry. As I watched, one blue jay flew down, alighting on the ground for a moment. It skipped once, twice, thrice, before flying away quickly.

No food here. No anything.

I hoisted the strap of my backpack higher on my shoulder and continued on, hands deep in my pockets, frown deeper than that. It was only one moment of anger, one moment of frustration. I remembered thinking if I couldn't nail duplication then I'd never stand a chance against Vlad, and after months of practice I had lost my patience, venting it on the forest itself. Even nearly two years later, the clearing still hadn't come back to life.

Needless to say, I didn't take my anger out on trees anymore.

After ten minutes of walking I came upon a shallow creek, which I found by following the musical trickling sound. As I neared it I startled away three dear who never heard me coming. Animals, they tended to run away from me. I think they knew what I was. They sensed it, the way they sensed wolves. Predators. That knowledge twisted my stomach.

I followed the stream for maybe a mile, stepping nimbly over roots and boulders, hearing squirrels skitter away in all directions warily as I approached. The forest was alive with animal sounds, but they steered wide around me, even the dragonflies and the grasshoppers.

Heh. Just like at school. Humans could sense predators too, but they called it intuition instead of instinct. The students didn't know _why _they avoided me, they just did because their gut told them to.

Soon I came out into what looked like an electrical plant, or an industrial yard or something. I'd seen this place from the air before but I'd never actually come here on foot. A tall chain link fence surrounded it, and beyond that there were these heavy metal machines fixed with coils, looking like some cross between arcade games and colossal refrigerators. In the center a giant structure rose up like a miniature Eiffel tower.

I didn't know what exactly this place was for, but I knew one thing for sure. "Danger: Keep Out" signs never applied to me.

A deep mechanical whirring came from the machines as I slipped silently between them, all humming in different tones like a strange industrial choir of monks. I smirked at the second "Danger: Keep Out" sign and walked straight through it, literally through it as I phased through the inner fence which surrounded the Eiffel tower structure.

I was no good at math, so my estimate of its height would be so off it wasn't even worth guessing. Besides, I could just _fly_ up there if I wanted. But.. I didn't want. I wanted to _climb_ it.

So I did.

Thick bars crisscrossed the massive sloping cylindrical columns, like the supports on a bridge. It made for perfect stepping stones in my ascent. I'd never been rock climbing or anything like that, but you'd be surprised how confident you become when you can fly. I mean, it's not like I was going to fall. An amused grin crept onto my face at the thought.

Step, rise, grab. Step, rise, grab. The steel was cold and the mountain air was colder, but unlike most people I liked the cold. It was as comfortable as a wool blanket around me. It energized me.

If this was a book, some romanticized piece of crap I'd be assigned in English, I might say that with each step upward I left my problems farther behind. But life didn't work that way, and even though I'd left Amity Park behind I knew I was just going to be returning within an hour or two. The fresh forest air brought no relief, no relaxation. A predator was always on their toes. I was never _off_ my toes. Always, always poised to spring.

I settled on my ass about two thirds up the structure, on a wide ledge far above the tree line. I was a few miles from the edge of the city now and much, much higher in elevation. I could see the school from here, and the neighborhoods stretching out into the distance. I might have even been able to see FentonWorks, but there was a large apartment building blocking it from sight. But really, I was kind of glad I couldn't see it.

I shrugged off my backpack, thinking maybe I could get some homework done from up here before patrol later on. It was hard not to laugh at the irony. That I trudged all the way out here in willful ignorance of the disaster that is my life, but even here in the middle of nowhere I'm no farther from it. That all I could think when looking out over the city with a fierce hold on me, is that at least I'd be able to see any ghost from here since my sense wouldn't alert me from this great a distance.

I didn't try to tell myself I didn't _choose _this life any more, or that I didn't want it. God knows I had enough chances to walk away from it. But I didn't. That's the real bite in the ass, I think. This hell I lived in was of my own devising.

Real funny. Har har.

Days like this were the hardest. It wasn't the days where I got home bleeding out every orifice, and it wasn't the days when I got home so late the light was coming over the mountains already and Mom and Dad were up waiting for me with that haunted look in their eyes. It wasn't even the days when Tuck or Sam got hurt, because god knows we were all used to it.

It was days like this, where the universe reared up and reminded me how completely and utterly alone I really was.

My chemistry notes were only half-complete, because I'd had to run out in the middle of class to deal with a ghost. As I tried to answer the first question my mechanical pencil snapped in my hand and the top half fell over the edge to the ground below. I cursed and threw the second half so far it landed beyond the outer chain link fence.

Days like this were days where I just wanted to blast away everything, like I did to that clearing. I wanted to freeze the forest solid and then punch every tree down. I wanted to blow a crater a mile wide into the ground and then scream until my scream turned into a wail, sonic waves flattening everything within a mile's radius.

But instead I just snapped pencils on accident, rendering homework impossible.

In frustration I ripped away my useless page of notes and crumpled it viciously, throwing it away. It tumbled to the ground, swept far to the left by the breeze. Balls of paper were immensely less aerodynamic than pencils. Strangely, throwing away my notes relieved the frustration, if only a little bit.

I'd promised myself I could get through the day, but I didn't even get through the intersection next to Tuck's apartment complex before getting sideswiped by Skulker's latest plaything, five feet of whirling razor sharp boomerang. Unfortunately for me, I was so focused on dodging it that I didn't realize it was a boomerang until it came hurtling back, and this time I dodged just a hair too late. Pain sliced through my right cheek just under my eye, and nicked straight through my eyebrow. One millimeter closer and I might have added half-blind to the list of what shit I am half of.

I didn't need to check the time to know I was going to be late to class as I reared back with a buildup of raw energy in the palm of my hand, arms cocked like a hunter with a bow as the other hunter charged me down high above the line of cars, most of which had come to a screeching halt to watch the ghost fight play out. It couldn't have been past 7:15am and my patience was already gone. I let out a furious growl and let the blast fly.

I ripped out another piece of paper from the notebook on my lap. This one was supposed to be my in-class English essay. There was only one paragraph written, since I'd gotten to class thirty minutes late. Mr. Laramie wouldn't even accept it. I crumpled it too and threw it away. It landed near the base of the structure, a tiny white speck upon the ground.

I was only twenty minutes late to first hour. 'Only' to me. 'Already' to Ms. Johnson, who had recently given up on assigning me detentions. (Most every member of the faculty had given up on me in some manner or another.) My favorite was the counselor they hired to replace Spectra. Back in sophomore year I was required to see her on a weekly basis for months. They were _so sure _I would crack, tell them what the hell was wrong with me. You know, spill my guts, tell them my angsty teenage problems, maybe admit I was heading a gang or dealing weed.

When junior year began they stopped forcing me to go. I overheard the words 'lost cause' in the parent-teacher conference and I've never smiled wider. Let them think whatever they wanted, as long as they left me alone.

I tore out a third piece of paper and wadded it, like it had personally affronted me.

There was only one person today who was actually nice to me, and I'd gone and been rude to him. It was self-destructive and self-preserving behavior, somehow wrapped into one stupid habit I continually repeated. Pushing people away.

It was in sixth hour when Mr. Wright had given us the option to work alone or with partners on the math homework, which he'd given us time in class to work on.

"Wanna work with me?"

I stared at Mikey for a second, not sure whether I was dreaming or not. We used to be pretty good friends in middle school, but I hadn't even had a real conversation with him since sophomore year. "Um.. thanks Mikey, but I think I should probably just work alone. Helps me focus better," I added lamely.

Mikey's anxious smile fell into a pitying look. "Don't be such a stranger, Danny."

_Mikey, baby, I'm stranger than you think._

"You don't _have _to be alone all the time you know."

I glared at him without even thinking. "Maybe I'm better off alone," I snapped, and stared at my paper without comprehending any of the math questions until he left my desk.

Growling in frustration I ripped out a fourth piece of paper violently, but I hesitated before I crumpled it, my eye caught by something coming in from the west. It was a kid, shaggy blond hair and slumping shoulders, climbing over the fence. I nearly went invisible and flew away instantly, but what if he'd already seen me? I couldn't tell where he was looking from here, and it wouldn't do to if he _saw _me vanish. So instead I pulled my legs up from over the ledge and leaned back against the metal framework, watching him approach.

My curiosity piqued when he began to climb the structure on the other side. He hadn't looked up at me once so I really didn't think he hadn't seen me. What the hell was he doing here anyhow? He climbed with ease, almost as much ease as myself, and I found myself grinning. Interesting. As I waited for him I played with the paper absently in my hands, folding the corners in, creasing it in the middle, giving it wings.

After a long ten minutes of him weaving in and out of sight, the kid emerged onto the ledge I was standing on. I could see him through the framework, and I raised an eyebrow at him. Once he finally noticed me he almost fell backwards off the other side.

"Oh, _shit!" _he spit, clutching his heart. "You scared the hell out of me!" He was wearing a backpack too, covered in swatches of duct tape. I don't think I'd never seen him at Casper before, though. "What are you doing here!"

"What are _you _doing here?" I countered.

He folded his arms, refusing to step around the ledge and come any closer to me. "I always come here. You know," he gestured vaguely out across at the horizon. "You can.. see everything better."

"It's off limits," I countered, feeling the direction of the breeze with one raised hand. I watched it sift through the branches, and waited until it was blowing away to the south. I tossed my airplane to the breeze and watched it soar until it disappeared into the branches of a tall oak.

"Didn't stop you," he sneered.

I shrugged, tearing out another piece of paper and creasing the corners. Things with wings fascinated me, the way they had to obey the winds, manipulate them, use them. The way it came so naturally to them. Me, I was as unnatural as it got.

I glanced back at the kid, who was watching me with extreme caution. "You.. you weren't going to.." he trailed off, biting his lip and looking away with a fierce blush. "You're not gonna _jump _are you?" he let out all in one breath.

I was so caught off guard that I actually laughed. "I'm sorry," I breathed when he looked stricken. "I know it's not funny, I'm sorry. No, no I'm not going to jump."

The wind was right again, blowing in a draft upward to the southeast, so I cast my airplane that way and grinned as the draft caught it beneath the wings and carried it far away until the white speck was too small to see.

"You're pretty good at that," the kid said softly. He was leaning against the framework now, still on the other side. Normally other kids didn't stay this close to me when they had a choice, and I was a bit thrown by it to be honest.

"You can uh.. you should sit down," I prompted. "You're making me nervous, standing there like that. You know how high up we are?"

The kid made a noncommittal grunting noise and stepped around the corner, settling as far as possible from me on the ledge, his legs swinging out over the abyss. I had to force down a smile, wondering when the last time I had a pleasant conversation with another student was.

I could feel his eyes on me as I let loose one, two more airplanes, one after the other, catching another southward gust of wind. Sam would kill me for littering. But the way I looked at it, the paper came from here in the first place so I was just.. returning it.

"So.. you're Danny Fenton, right?"

The paper I was folding crinkled in my hands unexpectedly, tearing down the middle. I blinked at him. "Uh.. yeah? I'm sorry, I don't think I know you. You go to Casper?"

"Yeah. I kind of blend into the background though, so I'm not surprised you don't know me." He said it with the fake grin I wore nearly every day. The one that said 'I'm laughing, but I don't really think it's funny.' "Name's Jacob."

"Well to be honest, I kind of blend into the background too, so I'm kind of surprised you know me."

To my everlasting surprise, Jacob scoffed and said, "Well everyone knows _you_." Then he flushed again and quickly looked away, as if he'd said something extremely rude.

"You can't be serious." I was tempted to rub my finger in my ear, thinking maybe they were filled with a pound of wax.

"Well you know.. you kind of have a reputation."

"Ah." I thought I saw where this was going. Good to know that not only did people instinctually avoid me, they avoided me because of my _reputation. _I wasn't stupid, after all. I knew when I came to class with bruises the size of baseballs and gashes barely concealed under gauze that people would talk. I'd heard rumors about myself, heard things that got back to Sam and Tucker, but I'd never considered something like this. _Everyone knows you. _Great, I had enough to deal with in regards to my fame as Phantom. The last thing I needed was fame as Fenton, for being the town delinquent.

"Are the things they say true?" he asked, letting his backpack fall behind him and leaning back against it.

I smiled ruefully. "I don't know what the say, but I highly doubt it's anything close to the truth."

"Eh, I knew it." He watched unabashedly as I let another paper airplane fly. I'd exhausted all the different types I knew how to fold and I was back to the initial plain model. "Man, what the hell happened to your face?"

"Hmn?" I stared at him in confusion.

He looked at me like I was crazy. "Just there, across your eye." He slid his finger up his right cheek, over his eyebrow.

"Ohhh." I felt the cut on my face, the early morning present from Skulker. I'd already forgotten about it. "That's nothing. One of the paper airplanes came back for revenge, paper cut me good."

"You're full of shit," he said pointedly, but he looked amused. "So I guess they were right about that. You're an expert liar."

To be honest, that stung a little bit. But I didn't let it show. "Yeah well, sometimes you have to lie."

"Can't argue that," he replied. "You mind if I try?" he added, pointing at my notebook. I shrugged, and handed him a piece of paper.

I watched him fold the paper with rapt attention, mimicking the last model I folded, the simplest one. "Mind if I ask you something?"

He peered at me quickly before shaking his head.

"You weren't.. trying to jump either.. were you?" My question caught him as he was aiming his airplane, and he jumped so violently that the plane veered away and spiraled listlessly to the ground. My eyes widened, and I knew I'd caught him. But it was like catching a shark in a fish net. What the fuck were you supposed to _do _with it?

"No.. no I wasn't," he said quickly, his hand clenching the fabric of his jeans.

"Come off it," I said, a bit too harshly. "Life sucks but you don't _kill _yourself!" Maybe it was still selfish of me, but I rather thought I had a harder life than anyone I knew and even I didn't off myself, so what gave anyone else the right?

"You've got it wrong, I'm not trying to kill myself," he said, his face screwed up like he was extremely uncomfortable. "At least, not anymore. I uh, I was thinking of jumping the first time I came up here but I just never got up the courage. I'm too chicken shit," he muttered, burying his face in his hands. "I kept coming back, thinking maybe I'd do it, but eventually I was just coming back for the view."

It was hard not to glare. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," I growled, tossing my notebook aside. I knew I should be nicer but I _hated _when people got suicidal. Didn't they realize what a precious thing life was? None of them had ever seen for themselves what it was like for those left behind. None of them had ever had life taken from them before.

Jacob looked at me like I had tentacles sprouting from my head. "Maybe I'm wrong, but aren't you supposed to be nice to suicidal people?" He seemed halfway between offended and amused.

I tried to soften my scowl. "I just think people who commit suicide are selfish," I stated simply, willing myself to not go into it any further. This is why I couldn't talk to people, couldn't have friends. Everything I had to say was tainted by my other life. I couldn't even have a conversation without it leaking in.

"Selfish," Jacob repeated numbly. "You think they're selfish."

"Yes," I snapped.

"It's selfish to want to end it because you can't take it anymore, because everything's just too much, because I'm a freak with no friends? It's my life. I should decide what do with it, or whether I –"

"That's where you're wrong," I interrupted, staring him straight in the eyes. "It's not your life. It doesn't belong to you, it belongs to everyone you know and everyone you love. It isn't your place to take that away from them."

"What the fuck do you know?" he spat. Jacob rose to his feet hastily, crossing his arms in a huff. "I don't even know you! I don't have to listen to you."

I shrugged and turned back toward the city. It looked so still from up here, sounded so quiet. In reality it was anything but. "You already told me you weren't suicidal anymore, so you don't really _have _to listen to me. It sounds like you already figured it out for yourself."

There was a very long moment of heavy silence, before Jacob said, "You're a weird guy, you know that Danny?"

I gave him a lopsided grin. "So they say."

He didn't sit down by me again, but instead shuffled back and forth on his feet, rubbing his arms for warmth against the bitter breeze. I'd almost forgotten it was freezing outside. Jacob was wearing a sweatshirt, and I was wearing a cotton t-shirt.

"But you're actually pretty nice. How come you don't have any friends?"

"Let's just say that I'm a freak too."

"So they say," he replied, and my grin turned sour.

"They say a lot of things, don't they?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "But you know, maybe they wouldn't spread shit about you if you just talked to people. You know, squashed the rumors yourself? You don't freakin' talk to anyone but that goth girl and what's his name. Tucker."

I sighed. I'd explained this to Jazz half a million times, since she'd made it her personal vendetta to squash the nasty rumors about me before she'd graduated. "Sometimes it's better to let people hear a bunch of lies, so that way if they hear the truth they won't recognize it."

Jacob blinked at me, and then he busted a gut. "You just get weirder and weirder," he breathed between gasps of laughter. "I mean what are you, like a Russian spy or something? Why do you have to be so freakin' mysterious?" He slapped his leg in mirth, clutching at his stomach.

"I don't _try _to be mysterious," I grumbled, resting my head on one hand. "It just kinda happens without my permission."

"You are so –"

I never found out what I "so" was, because at that moment Jacob's eyes flew wide open as he stepped backwards and slipped on the strap of his backpack. "_Shit!" _I heard him curse as his legs shot out from under him and he slid off the too-shallow ledge, grabbing for it desperately with his hands. But he didn't grab quick enough or hard enough, and the metal let his hands slip by.

I'd already jumped after him before I even registered what was happening. Predator's reflexes. Hero's reflexes.

It was a testament to the stupidity of the moment that Jacob looked more confused about the fact that I'd jumped too than scared about the fact that he was going to die. His face contorted into complete bafflement as he looked up at me, his arms and legs trailing above him.

To have complete control of flight I'd have needed to transform fully into ghost mode, but I didn't need to transform to float. So I dove after him full throttle, knowing all I needed to do was catch up to him. And I did. Wind whipped through my hair and his hair, but I caught a hold of his upper arms a mere second after he'd fallen from the ledge. He stared at me like I'd gone insane, but I beamed at him, hoping to ease his terror. Belatedly, it probably just made me look crazier.

Only after I grabbed him did he finally start to scream, like he'd only just begun to realize the implications of what was happening to him. Or what _would _be happening to him, if I hadn't been here.

He was still screaming as we neared the brown forest floor, covered in a thick coat of dead pine needles. It was probably good he was so scared, because he likely didn't notice the slight tingling sensation I knew I'd be giving him as I tapped into my powers, slowing our descent. He was still screaming, his eyes screwed tightly shut, as the wind died around us. He was still screaming as my feet touched gently on the ground, and I set him lightly beside me, hesitating to let go because I was sure he'd fall over.

All in all the fall had taken less than five seconds.

It took him a few moments to believe that he was still alive. He was shaking, his eyes darting from me to the structure back to me again, and suddenly he ducked out from under my arms.

"What the fuck, Danny?"

I stepped back, giving him space. Trying to look as small as possible.

"What the _actual fuck?_ What just happened!_" _

"That's.. a really good question," I said slowly, rubbing the back of my neck, fighting the crushing anxiety that was starting to overcome me now that the adrenaline was dissipating and the danger was gone. "And I _really _wish I could answer it but the thing is… " I grimaced at him apologetically, "I can't."

"What are you like a _superhero _or something? How in god's name are we alive?" He was gesturing wildly, running his hands through his hair. I worried for a moment that he was about to throw up, or start screaming again.

"Heh, no I'm not a superhero. Definitely _not _a superhero," I reiterated. I wasn't lying. I was a lot of things, and a superhero was not one of them. "Let's just say I'm really aerodynamic." I offered him another sly grin but he wasn't having it.

"You really _are _a freak, Danny Fenton."

My grin wiped away like rain from a windshield, like I'd been slapped.

"No, no," he said quickly, waving his hands wildly. "Like freaky in a good way. I don't know what the hell just happened, but it was cool."

"Oh," I replied, "well, okay. You uh.. you wait here. I'll get our backpacks from up there."

I could feel his eyes on my back as I scaled the tower for the second time that day, hoping I didn't slip. Using my powers in front of this kid twice would be _really _pushing my luck.

The silence was palpable as we walked along the creek back to town together. I knew he was staring at me but I couldn't bring myself to talk to him. I knew everything I said would be a lie, and he knew it too. So what was the point?

As we emerged out into the district of dilapidated buildings, I turned to him. "Look.. Jacob. You can't tell anyone about what happened."

To my surprise, he shrugged it off. "Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. Secret identity and all. I read comic books too you know."

I tried to laugh, like he was completely off the mark. "I'm not a freakin' superhero," I said, running my hand through my hair nervously. "I mean come on, there _are _no superheroes in this city. Don't you think you would have noticed?"

Jacob just shrugged. "Turns out there are a lot of things people in this town don't notice. Like the fact that a superhero is going to my high school!"

"I'm not a –! You know what, forget it. Just please, _please _keep this to yourself."

Jacob snapped to attention and gave me a mock salute. "Will do, Captain Amity, or y'know whatever your superhero name is."

I rolled my eyes, and I was still rolling them as we were walking down the street together and I had to deflect further inquiries about my 'hero' status. I was still rolling them as we parted ways.

But two days later when the sea of students parted in the hallway, keeping a wide bubble of space around me, I saw Jacob there. He didn't steer clear of me the way everyone else did, and the smallest of smiles crept onto my face as he waved at me. I waved back.

"Wait, did you actually make a friend while I was absent?" Tucker said sarcastically. He knew very well why I chose not to make new friends.

"You know, I think actually I did?"

In sixth period that day I pulled my desk over to Mikey's when Wright gave us time to work on our homework.

I may be strange, but I didn't have to be a stranger.


	21. Hide and Seek

Ummm I don't exactly know what to say about this one. I was looking for inspiration so I put my iPod on shuffle and the first song that came on was **"Hide and Seek" **by** Imogen Heap**. So listen to that if you wanna get into the mood I was in while writing this piece. In fact **I recommend you listen to it while reading this**. Originally I wanted to write something that would fit exactly with the music, like as in you would read it and the content would match parts of the song, but I figured that would be way too hard since everyone has different reading speeds. Ah, well.

Anyway this isn't the best one I've ever written by far but I got stuck on the idea and had to roll with it.

* * *

**Hide and Seek**

x - x - x

_My name is Daniel James Fenton._

Pit pat pit pat. I could hear their footsteps echoing as they ran past sporadically, the crackle of their communicators, the frantic orders being sent and received. They wouldn't find me, not as long as I was in my human form. They couldn't detect me, not with the very best of their equipment. I knew that much.

_847. 555. 8891._

From the cracks in the vent I could see red spatters on the glistening steel walls. Still wet, still dripping. I hadn't killed anyone, at least I didn't think so. But I had wanted to. After all, how many times had they made me bleed?

More footsteps. The wailing siren, loud and pervasive.

_My name is Daniel James Fenton._

I would wait. I would wait until things quieted relatively, and then I would escape. For now it was a game of hide and seek.

The steel was cold on my hands, the chill pressing on my skin through my thin, thin scrubs. But I didn't shiver. I don't think I even knew how to shiver. The cold pressed in on me comfortably, like a winter jacket.

_847. 555. 8891._

I wasn't allowed pockets, so I cradled my one possession in one hand, pressed against my chest, running my thumb over the leather again and again, reminding myself why I must do this, why I must escape. In the cold dark I mouthed silently again and again, terrified that somehow everything would be ripped away from me once more, terrified that if I was caught they'd make me forget like they did before. I traced the leather and my lips moved in a trance.

_My name is Daniel James Fenton. _

_847. 555. 8891._

Terrified that in my escape I might lose this possession, the only thing that mattered. I could see the wrinkled business card tucked inside it plainly in my head, her vivid orange hair. I could recite the phone number listed there in case I lost it.

_My name is Daniel James Fenton. _

Terrified that I wouldn't succeed. Terrified that I would.

_My name is Daniel James Fenton._

Terrified that I would never find them, that I'd never find myself, that this would all be for nothing. I don't know how long I sat tucked away, waiting to be discovered, waiting to fight my way free again. I could destroy them all and yet I didn't want to, and I couldn't explain to myself why. So I waited.

_My name is Daniel James Fenton. My name is Daniel James Fenton. My name is Daniel James Fenton._

I waited, and I waited.

When he first came to me I was confused. The wall clock rhythmically blinked 9:40pm, and I was on lockdown for the evening. So why was he here? Would there be an extra round of tests for the day? Some sort of new after-hours training?

In my quarters there was only my cot, one wooden chair in the corner, and three shelves imbedded into my white unadorned wall, crammed with books. I could go down the line and name how many times I had read each of them, and none were less than twenty. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all starkly plain, blindingly white, even my bed sheets were white. White as my hair, sometimes. But I liked my hair to be black in here. I could see the black wisps straying over my eyes and it was reassuring somehow. I didn't have much choice about my day-to-day life but 1) they hadn't been able to get near me with a pair of shears yet, and my hair spilling past my shoulders proved that, and 2) in my own room they couldn't tell me what form to take. So I took the one I preferred. Always. In the upper corner near the door, a tiny black dome protruded from the white landscape. The camera, the watchful eye, the reminder that even when I was alone, I was not.

When he walked in I got no knock or warning. I never did. The door slid open and I set my book down. It was a text on biology. I had other options, things like romance novels and sci-fi adventures, but it was nearly impossible to get into them. The human relationships confused me. It was all unfamiliar territory. I could understand many things, but I couldn't understand human interaction. Not when the only personal human interaction I could remember involved these emotionless characters in white, their eyes usually hidden behind shielding goggles in the training area.

I immediately rose from my bed and stood at attention, arms folded behind my back as per my training. But he ignored me and sat in the wooden chair, glancing up at the corner camera. "Oh sit down, kid," he said.

I didn't know much about myself but I was fairly certain I wasn't a kid. I was taller than this unfamiliar man at least. But what struck me was that he didn't call me "ghost," a very first in the three years I've been here. "Is there something I can do for you, agent?" I said, my voice detached, wondering what new mind games I was about to be subjected to.

"No, no," he said. "At least, not if you don't want to. All I wanted to do was talk."

"Talk," I repeat dumbly. I didn't understand. Did he want me to recite the rules again? Did he want me to display my knowledge on a certain subject or technique?

The man smiled at me, which crinkled all the little wrinkles on his dark face, even the ones on his balding head. "Yes, just talk. Don't worry, you aren't being examined or graded right now. I just finished out my shift and I thought I would pay you a visit. You can relax, kid, I'm being serious here."

A visit. I knew what visits were, but I sure as hell never had one before. This was certainly interesting. I furrowed my eyebrows at him, still reluctant to lose my attention stance. This was surely some kind of new trick, to test my obedience of the rules. My eyes flicked from the camera to the man in white to the camera again, and my arms twitched before I gave a swift shake of my head. I did not know what to do.

The man sighed and rose, heading for my door. His white suit blended into the wall, the door, only his dark skin visibly sticking out. If it weren't for his face I might've thought he was painted onto the surface of my prison. The corners of his mouth twitched as he tipped his head to me, the way I was taught to do toward the superior agents. My jaw fell open a bit as I watched him go.

It wasn't the last time I saw him. Later I learned his name was Agent Wilson. The second time he visited me, he asked me to call him Ray. I had never been on first name terms with anyone before. It bubbled up a feeling in my stomach which I couldn't remember ever having before. I grew to like it very much. He wouldn't call me ghost and didn't call me Phantom, which was what the other agents called me in rare formality. It made me wonder, did I have a first name too? He just called me kid.

"I'm not a kid," I told him once.

He looked at me in surprise from across my narrow room, and said, "How do you know?"

I frowned, thinking it over. "I just do."

He leaned forward in the chair, hands on his knees, staring into my eyes. I fidgeted uncomfortably. "You're right," he said finally. "You're twenty-two, which can hardly be called a child. But I'm fifty-six, which means you're a kid to me, kid."

My face went slack for a moment. I was twenty-two years old. I had never given thought to how old I was, and no one had ever mentioned. I never thought it was important.

Ray visited me at least once a week for months.

He didn't usually press me to talk, and it was good because I usually had nothing to say. My life consisted of training and eating and sleeping. Mostly Ray told me stories. His wife who was a teacher, his daughter who was a nurse. His parents, who lived in a nursing home together. His weekend camping trips, his wild college days, how he built his career. I was riveted by every minute of it.

When other agents prodded me with instruments during my weekly physical examination, I found myself wondering what they thought of me. Was I truly a creature to them? A nonperson?

When I followed orders in daily training I found myself wondering how much of me was a weapon and how much wasn't. How much ghost was I and how much human?

Once I was overcome with stupidity and had a brief moment of reckless bravery. I asked something I hadn't asked since those first few very cloudy months, the ones heavy with darkness and sedation and pain, where nearly everything I asked or said was met with a violent electrical shock. I must have grown too comfortable with Ray if I let my careful guard down this much.

He was me what his wife had done the day before, and I found myself saying, "Ray, did I ever have a family?"

There was a long silent moment between us, which was broken by a low sigh on his end of the room. "I'm real sorry kid, but I'm not allowed to talk to you about that."

"..Oh." My fingers twined in my lap and I wished I could take back the question. Ray left very soon after that.

But the next week when he came to visit me, he had a book tucked under his arm. My whole face lit up as he walked toward me with it. "I figured you could use one. You haven't had any new books in months."

"Thank you," I said genuinely, accepting the thick leather bound book from him. Gold designs traced across the binding and the spine read _Moby Dick. _I couldn't wait to read something fresh for once.

"Listen very carefully," Ray said quietly.

I perked up from the inside title page, letting the cover fall shut again. I wasn't sure why he was speaking quietly, because the security camera couldn't pick up sound, only picture.

"This is yours," he said firmly. "I mean it _was _yours. It belonged to you before.. before you came here. Before they brought you here. You and I would be in a world of trouble if anyone knew you had this, so when you read it make sure you are facing the camera head on, with that book open toward yourself, alright kid? Can you promise me that?"

I nodded numbly, thinking that was a very silly request. Wouldn't the camera plainly pick up the book title if I was facing it? But I trusted Ray. In fact, he was the only person I could ever remember trusting before.

After Ray left me that night I sat on my cold sheets and tried not to eye the camera with the halting paranoia pervading me. I turned past the table of contents and to the first chapter and read the first page. It was shockingly dull, and for a brief moment I was gripped by disappointment. But when I turned the page I nearly dropped the book out of surprise. There was a jagged, uneven rectangle cut straight into the pages of the book, dipping down nearly to the end of it. Set into this cavity was a small, square of leather. It took a moment to recognize it for what it was.

A wallet.

My wallet?

Hesitantly, almost paralyzed by interest and fear, I unfolded it.

Inside a clear plastic strip was a brown and white card, with my face on it. I didn't remember my hair ever being that short, but there it was. And my face. My human face, on a driver's license. I pulled it out and stared at it, carefully keeping it hidden behind my open 'book.'

I had a name. _Daniel James Fenton._

I had a name. I even had a signature. It was right there on the card.

Further exploration pulled up a Visa card that also displayed my name, and both junior and senior high school IDs to a place called Casper High. I looked even younger in those pictures. I looked happy. I looked like a stranger. Also inside were a couple five and a one dollar bills, crinkled and torn. A business card that read_ Jasmine Fenton, _set by an image of a pretty orange haired woman.

Folded and shoved into a bottom corner behind the money was glossy paper. Unfolded, it was a dirty and abused strip with three photos set vertically. I recognized myself in the center, with one person on each side of me. In the first we were grinning like maniacs, all squished together. In the second picture the guy in the red hat was trying to push my face toward the dark-haired girl's face. She looked mortified, her cheeks flushing red as she pressed up against the wall trying to avoid me, and I looked comically confused, my cheek squished as I tried to resist the guy's hand. In the third picture I had my arm outstretched, shoving the other boy's face into the other wall, my face bright red and my eyes a dangerous green. But he was laughing, and the girl was laughing.

The back of the photo paper said nothing but _Christmas, freshman year._

I tucked it gingerly back into the wallet, feeling completely hollow. There was a reason I had kept this, once upon a time. I only wish I knew what it was. I looked at the business card again, studying the orange-haired woman's face, her phone number. Her last name – or my last name.

So.

This was what I left behind. What had been taken from me.

I tucked everything carefully into its place and placed the book on my shelf.

The agents surrounding me daily began to seem less like people and more like monsters. I was a ghost but I wasn't _just _a ghost. I was a human. I had a family once. Friends. What did they do?

I stared at them through weapons training, I stared at them through powers training, I stared at them through my physical, trying to read into their distant minds. Couldn't they see what I was?

I wasn't a ghost. I wasn't Phantom_, _as they so rarely called me_. _I was Daniel James Fenton. And I had the suspicion that every one of them knew that full well. And yet here I was. Their weapon of mass destruction. Every day I wondered how long until they deemed me ready for use, like prototype in its final stages of testing.

I couldn't look at them without feeling sick to my stomach.

I didn't read anymore. The only book I read was _Moby Dick. _I bet the agents monitoring my quarters thought I was losing it, wondering how I could read the same book over and over.

But I was staring at the contents of a previous life, poking at the void in my mind. No matter how long I stared they never looked more familiar, and it always left me feeling worse off than the day before.

I think I had just passed the fourth year mark when I decided to go.

Maybe they thought they had successfully smothered the rebel in me, successfully trained me into lapdog obedience. Maybe they had. Until Ray showed up, and showed me that I was human. All it took was one person, treating me with an ounce of dignity. Treating me like a friend.

And I had to know. I had to know if these faces in my wallet knew me. If they loved me. If they missed me, if they were waiting for me. That thought began to saturate my every waking moment. I might not remember them, but surely they remembered me? What if they spent every day waiting for me to come home to them?

So it was with cold detachment that I finally attacked my captors, ripping through them like a shark through a school of fish. It was the way it had to be, if I was to be free.

Pit pat pit pat. The footsteps came less frequently. It might have been a whole day that I was hidden away in the ventilation. The voices passing by seemed to suggest the agents thought I had escaped the premises already. That was good. If they weren't looking here anymore it would make it easier to escape.

_My name is Daniel James Fenton._

But still, I would wait. I would wait as long as I possibly could in order to optimize my chances. In the dark I ran my eyes over the photo set for the millionth time, setting the two faces into memory. My own face was so young, that I wondered if I would even recognize the other two if I saw them. I wondered if they would recognize me.

_847. 555. 8891._

I wondered if Jasmine Fenton even still had the same phone number. What would she say when she heard my voice on the other line? Was she my sister? A cousin?

_My name is Daniel James Fenton._

That's what I would say when she answered the phone. Maybe she could tell me who I was. Maybe she could remind me.


	22. Wanderer

This was inspired by a post on tumblr I saw awhile back, about nomad Dani. This idea's been running around in my head ever since.

* * *

**Wanderer**

x - x - x

She was the whisper on the breeze, the peripheral shadow, the stranger, the wanderer, the enigma. The days stretched out behind and ahead, blurring together indefinitely. Sometimes she would emerge from around a corner or behind a sign and confuse a stranger by asking them for the date, including the month of the year. Often she was surprised by the answers.

_It's May already?_ Or, _Christmas came and went without me noticing_? Or, _Summer's nearly over in this hemisphere, and I wasted the whole thing in Antarctica. Shit._

She was also a klepto, a selfish asshole, a lazy sack of shit who bored very easily. It wasn't often she stayed in one place more than a couple of days.

When she tired of sleeping in the loftiest branches of trees she would help herself to uninhabited motel rooms. When she tired of a city or a climate she would open up her senses and poke around with mental feelers, searching for that lively spark, that uneven ripple in the fabric, and she would go towards it. She'd slip into the dark swirling world that felt strangely like home, and she'd emerge from it back onto her own plane of reality by choosing a portal at random. It was useful, easily her most useful power after invisibility and flying, to be able to seek out naturally recurring portals. She may not be an original but she didn't know of any other ghost that had her coveted power. Though she did have her suspicions about Boxie.

Once during a visit back home Val had asked her to list off every place she'd ever been, and to her surprise she hadn't been able to do it. She'd been so _many _places that they'd begun to bleed together, one long train of memories spilling into each other. That's when Sam gave her the camera. It was Sam's personal fancy photography camera, and at first she'd resisted but Sam had insisted. Very forcefully.

So every so often, her friends back home would get an envelope in the mail full of photos, each labeled by location. She figured it was the least she could do, since they worried about her so much.

Especially Danny.

Ani frowned at her camera and tucked it away into her pack. Other than the camera, the only things in there were a crudely drawn map of the Ghost Zone, three metal water bottles, half a hundred granola bars and Snickers bars, a bag of hot cheetos, and a thermal blanket. When she wanted anything else, she simply took it. After all, places like Walmart could spare a t-shirt or a loaf of bread for one wandering stranger.

She hadn't gotten her pictures developed since the last time she'd visited Amity. She kept meaning to, but the thought of mailing them wrenched her heart in an unpleasant way.

The doorknob was rattling so Ani quickly gathered up her bag and vanished from sight, sticking around long enough to see the maid's reaction to her little surprise. A small note on the mussed-up pillow which read: _Thanks for the free night's stay! Love, your friendly neighborhood ghost._

Ani snickered into her hand as the maid read the note and whirled around wildly, searching for a culprit.

She emerged into the crisp morning air and breathed deeply. But the air wasn't fresh. It tasted like exhaust and disappointment. The whole city tasted like disappointment, and even though she'd only been here twenty four hours she was ready to split town. But she knew everyone would kill her if she didn't snap a picture here, so she flew into position about a mile in front of the _Hollywood _sign on the hillside, and made a face at the lens while she captured the moment on film.

Eventually she'd get them developed. Eventually. But every time she thought about it her heart hurt.

Yeah, it was definitely time to split town. Someone on ground level had spotted her while she was visible, and there were a few passersby who had come to gawk. Wherever she went, people were all the same when it came to ghosts.

A couple months ago she realized she'd accumulated over a hundred photos without sending any back. Feeling a little bad about it, she'd decided to make a personal trip home to deliver them, surprising everyone.

The greetings she got always made it worth it. It wasn't really her home, but they sure made it seem that way. When she gave them enough warning she'd usually come home to find some sort of over-extravagant party. She'd roll her eyes and pretend to be exasperated, but secretly she thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it.

It was nice being in a place where everyone knew her name for once. People who knew what she was and didn't care in the slightest. Tucker was actually the one who started calling her Ani. At first she'd been irritated. Of all the nicknames, why would he start calling her that?

Tucker had snickered, wearing his usual self-satisfied smirk as he explained himself. _Duh. You're Danny.._ He'd pointed distinctly across the room at Danny,_ minus the D._

_Minus the.._ oh. When she got the joke she laughed so hard she almost peed her pants, right there on Danny's bedroom floor. Danny looked mortified, like he always did whenever Tucker made inappropriate jokes in front of Dani, like she was his baby sister instead of only a few years behind him. (Mentally, at least. The technicalities were too messy to bother with.) But Sam and Valerie insisted it was the only funny joke Tucker had ever made, and somehow the name stuck. After two years even Danny was calling her Ani now.

The last time she visited, she had descended on Amity Park and popped in on Danny right smack in the middle of a ghost fight. He was so surprised that Skulker actually _caught _him in the net. Skulker was so surprised himself that he didn't have enough to time whisk Danny away before Ani beat the ever-loving snot out of him. Ghost fights were rarer outside Amity, since the natural portals were so highly concentrated here, so it was very satisfying.

Of course Danny called all his friends to come and see her, but not before she and Danny spent some quality time together. Friends were friends, but Danny.. he was family. He was the only family Ani ever really had. Strange, that she was a copy of him but he was the first one who made her feel like her very own person. Well, life was strange that way. And their lives topped the list.

They sat on the roof of Fentonworks, Danny's favorite stargazing spot. Of course, it was still daylight, but he seemed to like it anyhow. She gave him first dibs on rifling through her pictures, since everyone usually fought over them when they were all together.

It was the first time she'd ever actually _watched _Danny go through her pictures. He seemed excited, but as he plunged through the stack she swore she saw the corners of his mouth twitch into a frown momentarily. He glanced at her and smiled, as if in reassurance that he was happy.

As usual, Ani had been oh so very stupid. She was street savvy, sure. And textbook genius, after the rigorous courses forced into her by Vlad. But when it came to human relationships? She was like an autistic turtle. If it had been anyone other than Danny, she might _never_ have realized. As it was, it took her looking straight into his eyes as he leafed through her photographs to realize that she was actually _hurting_ him.

_Where's this? _His voice was full of half-hearted enthusiasm.

She would have given anything not to answer. She remembered taking that photograph, thinking how much Danny would love it, how awesome he would think she was once he saw it. Now she wished she had thrown it away, or never gone there in the first place. Anything but seeing this look on Danny's face.

_That's from when I snuck into the NASA site near D.C._ The slightly blurry photograph showed her laughing, a few steps ahead of a dozen security guards attempting to catch up with her.

Danny had laughed. _Atta girl. You're a Fenton, alright._ But Ani knew a fake laugh when she heard one. God, she was stupid. So stupid.

Ani left Hollywood behind with no regrets. She doubted she would ever come back. There was really nothing for her here. Not when she had been into the golden inner chambers of an Egyptian pyramid, when she had walked on the frozen surface of an asteroid, when she had swum with a pod of singing whales. Humans put value in the stupidest shit, honestly.

She flew for maybe an hour before she sensed a portal opening up nearby. She followed the spark, crackling along the earth like live fire, and found the epicenter at the base of a gnarled tree on the side of a highway. It was a small one, only about two feet wide, but just big enough to allow her to pass through.

The Ghost Zone swallowed her quickly, dunking her fully into its freezing phantasmagoric waves. The weight of it all pressed down on her senses. Humming and whistling noises seeped into her brain, sounding both near and far all at once. She floated aimlessly, keeping a firm grip on her backpack strap, watching sealed portals floating by with interest.

Like always, she chose one purely at random.

The best moment was always finding out where she had gone this time, what new place was waiting for her.

She had been to the misty Machu Pichu, to the Great Barrier Reef, to a waterfall in the Congo where the water separated into small sparkling pools and she was knocked breathless by the beauty of it. She had looked down through a hailstorm atop the Rocky Mountains into a valley of green grass lit by a golden swatch of sunlight. She had sat next to a slumbering tiger and watched a solar eclipse come and go, inverting the world with unearthly light. She had walked on every continent, had looked up at the world from its lowest points and down on it from its highest.

But never in all of that had she seen anything as beautiful as the world she emerged into when she stepped through this random portal.

If she was in human form, she would be dying, the air sucked from her lungs, her eyes bulging out. But as a ghost, she was free to come here if she so pleased. And where was here? A white glacial landscape, dark and dim but reflecting vivid orange, yellow, red. Like the ice was ablaze. Stretching as far as she could see in every direction. A black night sky, dotted with stars, infinite infinite stars, so many more stars than she would ever see from Earth. On the far horizon an impossible apparition, a quarter of the sky filled by a striped red giant, its horizontal zones which looked still from here but were spinning against each other at thousands of miles per hour. She couldn't see the Great Red Spot, but she didn't have to in order to know she was looking at Jupiter.

Which moon was she standing on? Would it be Io? Callisto? One of the smaller ones, maybe? Which was the one covered in ice? With a pang, the thought came unbidden. _Danny would know._

The remote sun sat just barely above the opposite horizon, small, so very small. No wonder this world was cold and dark. She couldn't even begin to guess how many miles she had covered in the five minutes since she stepped into the portal just outside Hollywood, California.

Warily, she glanced back at the portal she'd just stepped out of. Ani was reckless by nature, but whenever the portals led her into space she was extremely cautious. Sometimes the natural portals lasted weeks or months or even years, but sometimes they opened and closed in minutes. If she allowed the portal to close behind her, who knew how long until she found another one? It wasn't a risk she was willing to take. So while this place was beautiful, like a wild dream, she knew she couldn't stay. She snapped at least twenty pictures, knowing that none of them would do it justice. Only a few of them had herself in the picture.

She lounged on her back in the air just outside the portal, biting into a Snickers bar. Eating while in ghost form wasn't necessary or even functional in the way of providing nourishment for her human half, but who ate Snickers for the nourishment? The taste was the important part. So she tasted chocolate and counted the stripes on Jupiter. When she was bored she traced the shape of Cujo in the spotted sky, a new constellation. In the thick virgin ice she stamped two footprints, and burned her signature deep into the ground with flaming ecotplasm. Maybe someday space explorers would wonder who _Ani Fenton _was.

This time when she went back into the Ghost Zone and emerged once more, she found herself in Liverpool, England. It would be painfully easy to find a post office here, and she couldn't put it off any longer or she'd be getting shit from Val.

But for the first time ever, she fretted over her pictures. In the end she kept the ones of Jupiter, tucking them back into her pack.

Back when she was younger, she'd been even stupider. Even less in tune to people's emotions and needs.

It was the first time she came back to see Danny since that fateful day at Vlad's mansion, the day when Danny stabilized her. Set her free.

_Stay with me, _he had pleaded when she grew restless and knew it was time to leave again. _Please. You don't have to go. You have a family here, and we can take care of you._

But Ani didn't want that. She wanted to feel the wind whipping her hair, sand between her toes, salt breeze stinging her nose.

_Come with me, _she had begged. He was just like her, the only one like her, barring Vlad. Together they could conquer the world if they wanted, or you know, visit every beach in Europe and then explore a ruin in South America. The world was ripe for the picking for people like them. Didn't he want to take advantage of that? Couldn't he see what a beautiful world it was? Didn't he want to experience it? _Come with me. Please, Danny._

He had smiled at her so sadly. She never knew those two emotions could mix so thoroughly until then. She struggled to understand.

_I can't, Dani. Believe me when I say I would love that more than anything else in the world. But.. my place is here. I have to protect them, because if I don't then no one will._

So Ani tucked the pictures of Jupiter into her backpack instead of sending them back. After all this time she was finally starting to get a grasp on how people worked, and she knew that maybe it was better if Danny didn't know. What was that human saying? Oh, right. What he didn't know couldn't hurt him.

After all, she was the wanderer, but he was the prisoner.

A sudden idea struck her as she slipped the fat manila envelope into the mail slot. Maybe all he needed was a babysitter… so he could take a vacation. She'd been wandering a long, long time. Maybe she could play prisoner for a while, so Danny could wander.

Quickly she retraced her steps and found the Jupiter-portal within the Ghost Zone. She pulled out her own crude map, which Danny had adjusted time and again, and attempted to map this portal's location onto it. Danny's birthday was coming up anyway, and what better present than a trip to Jupiter?


	23. Hunter

Ummm I've had this AU kicking in my head for awhile. You could say I've been watching Cowboy Bebop a bit too much lately.. Anywho, this might (_might) _be continued into a longer story eventually, but I haven't really figured out the rest of it yet. So for now this is just a one-shot. I hope it's not too confusing. If you haven't noticed by now I kind of hate using too much exposition because I feel like it really intrudes on a story, so I try to slip it in more subtly. I hope that comes across, and doesn't just make it confusing. Let me know if it is, so I can improve. ^-^

* * *

**Hunter**

x - x - x

The air is alive.

This is how he always knows when he is getting close.

The computer on his forearm buzzes softly in two short bursts, and when he pushes up his brown coat sleeve the message on display is from exactly who he thought it would be. But he eats another potato chip and pulls his sleeve back down without replying.

_You in town yet?_

Yeah, Danny's in town. And what a town it is. It's been a long time since his exploits have led him to a blooming metropolis as lively as this one. There are so many humans crawling the sidewalk that none of them even glance twice at him as he strides by, which is a welcome change. Where in small towns he sticks out, here he blends into the chaos. What's one strange-looking guy in an ocean of strangers?

As he leans against the pole waiting to cross yet another intersection, two girls with cropped hair stare back at him from the other side. The shorter is sporting a flaring rainbow skirt and the taller of the two wears a floor length pink dress with strips of fabric that trail on the pavement. Human fashions never cease to befuddle him. It seems every time he comes to a new city it's gotten even stranger. Which is why he wont let go of this tattered brown coat. Long, plain coats will never go out of style. If they do he'll eat his own hand.

The taller girl giggles and whispers to the other behind her hand, then starts digging around frantically in her purse. When the "cross" sign lights up, her friend slaps her on the shoulder to get her attention and the girl scrambles to finish what she's doing inside her purse, and lurches forward to catch up.

Danny flashes them a winning smile as they approach. The way that girl's smiling back at him, it's obvious what she's about to do. As they pass each other she bites her lip and catches Danny's swinging hand, the one that's not clutching a bag of chips, and presses her own hand into it firmly. And then she's gone, and Danny's staring at the scrap of paper in his hand, decorated with ten dainty little numbers.

Yeah, a guy could definitely have some fun in a city like this.

Not that he's here for shits and giggles.

But he'd had a long flight, and that's why he ignored that message before. It shouldn't be too much to ask for a _little_ breather before cracking his neck and getting down to business.

Amidst the sea of reflective windows and flashing neon signs, headlights and flitting shadows, one sign finally sticks out from the blur. "_Black Rabbit." _If he hadn't seen a bus stop ad advertising it three blocks back he wouldn't have known what it was, and it wouldn't have caught his eye as it does.

It's not even eleven o'clock yet, so he's not surprised when the bar is fairly packed. He lounges under a neon _Coors _sign in a corner and trades the phone number paper for another potato chip. When a patron stumbles away to the door he snags the open bars tool and grins up at the thick-bearded bartender, who's still collecting the man's tab.

"You can't bring food in here," the man says, glaring at Danny's crinkled blue chip bag.

Danny unshoulders his backpack and good-naturedly shoves it in the biggest compartment. "Pretty busy tonight, huh?"

The man's scruffy beard twitches, although it's anyone's guess what kind of face he's making beneath it. The rest of his face is unmoving. "What gave it away?"

"Oh you know, just a hunch." Danny shrugs passively. Behind him the low roar of fifty or so conversations rolls steadily on. With his keen hearing he could likely pick out any word that anyone was saying, provided he had the interest or motivation or focus. Of which he has none.

Either his joke goes over the man's head or his sense of humor is as dry as Mars. "What can I get you sir?" The bartender's already eyeing two other customers attempting to flag him down.

"Shot of Three Olives?"

The bartender opens his mouth and starts to say "I –" but Danny's already pushing his ID into the man's face. Mostly people don't even bother asking. Nobody usually thinks twice about him being over twenty-one, and Danny's ninety-nine percent sure it's ninety-nine percent to do with his hair. The bartender's beady eyes flit between the ID photo and Danny's face, like he's trying to reconcile them as the same person. Abruptly, he shuffles away without further comment.

Danny glances to his left and right. Both neighbors are engrossed in conversation with people on their other sides. Most everyone at the counter are either conversing with someone else or raptly staring at the mute basketball game playing above the shelves of bottles on the opposite wall.

Danny bunches up the left sleeve of his coat past his elbow, and touches his finger to the small globe icon in the corner to open up his map.

A blurry, glitchy display opens up on the wide glowing screen, but Danny pulls his goggles up from their place hanging loose around his collar and instantly the disjointed map emerges from the screen into reality, rising up from jagged lines into a fully fleshed out 3-D image, filling out the space in front of Danny. He angles his forearm so the image rests on the empty countertop.

Now the bartender's back and setting a tiny glass in front of Danny, right in the middle of the display. Through the goggles everything is tinted, so it's even more difficult to discern the man's expression. But he rests his arm on the counter with an air of annoyance. Like a waitress who's trying to take your order when you're talking on the phone.

Danny reaches through the glowing map to accept the shot glass and the bartender says, "You want something to chase this with or –" but his mouth flaps shut as Danny downs the glass and slides it back across the counter. "Guess not," he finishes gruffly, as though he's been offended.

The bartender begins to move away down the line but Danny pushes his goggles up his forehead and calls after him. "Hey, could'ya bring me another?"

"Sure thi –"

"Actually just bring me three. Uhm, five. You know what, just put five all in a glass together, would you?" The man stares openly at him but Danny beams and says, "Thanks, guy!" before dropping his goggles back into place and delving back into his map.

The conversations continue on in every corner. Danny catches snippets of dialogue. For some reason he enjoys knowing there are regular people, all wandering around, bumping into each other, leading lives he'll never know anything about. There's a word for it - Tucker said it once when Danny described the feeling. _Sonder. _That's it. Danny has a habit of _sondering. _He's nothing close to a poet, but it's a little beautiful.

If anything, it reminds him why he does what he does.

Someone down the line swears at the television screen and he smiles before he tunes them all out again. The bar is alive around him with human interaction, but that's not what's making Danny feel so energized.

Oh yeah, the air in this city is certainly alive. And there's a reason for it.

The geographical map shows the Americas currently and an uneven dotted line of green streaks through it, congealed in some spots and sparse in others. It begins in middle United States and curls downward, cutting around South America and deep into Antarctica, where it dances strangely before turning north again. There it stretches from the Andes and curves up through Haiti and into the Gulf of Mexico, cuts up diagonally toward Maine, straight along the coast of Greenland, and does a series of intricate loop-de-loops just south of the North Pole before descending back through Canada and into the northern United States.

Danny touches an icon at the base of the 3-D image and it shifts from geographical mode into political mode, and suddenly the borders of countries are visible and the countries and states are color coded.

Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. As he zooms in the green line becomes less obvious, appearing more as random occurrences. The further in he gets, the less obvious the pattern. Less obvious that the green patches are part of a line. He narrows in on the northern border of Minnesota, where the green line abruptly stops. He finds the the nearby black dot marked Minneapolis_._

He'd already been patrolling around Minnesota when he got the message calling him to Minneapolis. As soon as he arrived he was certain. He'd have known when he got here, even without the helpful call. When he gets close there's a certain spark in the air, a certain heaviness, as if he's a magnet at the edge of a another magnet's field, just beyond the reach of its influence.

The air molecules squirm around him, in response to him. Or maybe he's responding to them.

Usually he waits until afterward to mark up the map, but why not? He's been right nine times out of ten. So he selects another icon at the bottom of the display and then makes an "x" motion across the black dot represented Minneapolis. The black dot grows to four times its size and changes from black to neon glowing green.

His arm buzzes softly again and the light of the map dulls while a white sheet of paper opens up in front of it.

_My place better be the first place you go when you get here I swear to god Danny. Don't forget you haven't visited in almost a year, you fuckass_

Danny snorts and yanks his goggles back down so that they hang loosely around his neck on the elastic band. Did Tucker just call him a fuckass? He bites back a louder snort of laughter.

The bartender's back and Danny accepts the glass gratefully and pretends not to notice the bartender's incredulous look as he takes a swig of straight vodka.

The bartender saunters away, muttering under his breath, and Danny returns his attention to his computer. The tiny bite of guilt's starting to gnaw at his belly though, so he hits 'reply' at the bottom of the white screen on his arm and types out: _Love you too. Calm your tits though. I'm almost there _

"Nice tech," says a smooth voice on his right. He turns to see that the middle-aged man who'd been there before had been replaced by a curvy young woman without him noticing. Or maybe he was just a very sexy shapeshifter.

On instinct Danny sizes her up for a moment, but a moment is all he needs. Latest computer model, already twelve upgrades past his own, wrapped around her right arm. So, left handed. Concealed bulge beneath her crimson jacket. Even an idiot would notice. Part of a belt visible, something on it glinting just out of sight. Thick soled boots with extra straps where no normal person would need them. Oh yeah, he knows exactly what she is.

"Is this the part where I get offended?" Danny asks, leaning heavily on his left arm without pulling his sleeve back down like he normally would.

The woman rolls her eyes and sips at her tall frothing glass. "I wasn't being sarcastic."

"Neither was I."

As Danny takes another drink from his glass the woman brushes her wavy black hair behind her shoulder. "Are you seriously drinking straight vodka?"

"No," Danny shrugs.

She scrunches her eyebrows at him and watches him finish the glass.

Minutes of silence stretch between them, in which Danny orders another. The bartender's beginning to look at him like he's a psychopath. He wonders how long he has until he's forcibly cut off.

"So..." the woman begins and Danny fights the urge to sigh. He's no good at small-talk with humans. "Bounty hunter, huh?"

He blinks. Sets his glass back down. "What gives you that idea?" he asks her.

She smirks. Her eyes are bright, speckled brown and green like spots on a leaf, and her lips are full. She probably could've been a model if she'd wanted. She reaches for his open jacket and pulls it back, revealing several metallic things clipped onto the inside.

Danny shrugs out of her reach, but not before her eyes widen.

"Holy crap, is that… Oh wow. Yeah.. wow. I'm gonna need another drink."

Yep. Now Danny's starting to regret ever entering this establishment.

"Man, I knew it," she breathes. Danny downs the rest of his drink, desperately wishing (not for the first time) that he could feel the effects of it at all. "You're the one they call the Phantom, aren't you? I mean, if that little contraption doesn't give it away your hair does. Not many people our age have hair like yours. Not to be rude, it must suck to start going gray this early in life!"

Danny runs his fingers through his hair self-consciously, mussing it up, and stares at her, debating whether he should just leave. He hates when people call him that. "It's Danny," he growls.

"Valerie," she replies cheerily, sticking out her left hand. He shakes it reluctantly. After a very lengthy handshake he pries his hand away, causing her to flush. "Sorry for sticking my foot in my mouth," she mumbles. "Just a bit star struck is all."

"Don't be," he grumbles back. His attempts to flag the bartender go unnoticed. He's avoiding him now.

She points at his jacket, where his most valuable possession is tucked on the inside. "So is that your.. your whatever-you-call-it?"

"Yep."

"Wow. Do you think I could uh.. you think I could see it?"

Danny glances back over at her. She looks like a kid at a museum, poised at the edge of her chair. It almost hurts him but he says it. "No."

Her face crumbles. "Why not?"

"It's the only one I've got," he answers, trying to flag down the waiter again. "Nothing personal."

She sighs and turns her attention back to her nearly empty glass. "Yeah I get it. It's just that I've kind of always been a bit jealous of you, to be honest."

He smirks. "You and every other bounty hunter."

She crosses her arms and taps her fingers impatiently. "Yeah well you'd understand if you were us. You come out of nowhere and you have all this tech that's years and years ahead of the state-issued variety, and you won't tell anyone anything about it. Forgive me for being a little curious."

"You're forgiven."

She rolls her eyes wearily and slumps back into her chair. "You're impossible."

A cold sensation claws its way up Danny's throat and he coughs suddenly into his jacket collar to hide the way his breath has turned briefly to icy mist. Over his cough he hears a low beep to his right.

Ah, crud. Not here.

"Incoming," Valerie says as she checks her computer screen.

Danny already knows it's approaching. He grinds his teeth and the hairs on his arms raise.

She lets her jacket sleeve fall back over her computer. "It's just a class-one," she adds. "It's not the big fish we're all after. Let one of the other guys grab it. It's probably not even worth more than a couple hundred."

"Other…" Crap. When he glances around he realizes just how stupid he was. He'd waltzed into a bar with at least five other bounty hunters lounging around. And now they're all glancing at their arms and rising from their chairs.

Class-one. Please, please don't be…

His thoughts are interrupted by a tiny high-pitched bark coming from under his bar stool. Valerie glances down and lurches backwards out of her own seat, and five men at once struggle to free themselves from their tables. Danny pinches the bridge of his nose as they all rush forward, and the first patron notices the glowing dog under Danny's stool and screams.

The hunters shove past scattered chairs and come up on Danny just as he drops lightly from his stool and stands in front of Cujo. A cold sensation tickles at the back of his legs.

"Move aside, citizen!" the closest bounty hunter snaps. He has a flashy gun leveled at Danny's ankles, and Cujo whimpers softly against Danny's jeans. _Citizen. _God, bounty hunters always think they're so high above everyone else. It's sad, really.

Another hunter pipes up as more patrons begin to notice what's happening, now shoving past each other to crowd toward the other side of the room. "Sir, we request you move immediately, as there is a class-one threat level entity just behind you."

Danny yawns and scans the line of men, trying to decide the best course of action. He wanted some _relaxation _before going to Tucker's, not this mess. Ugh.

The first man is through with patience. "You speak English? Get the hell out of the way! Or we'll make you get out of the way!"

Danny tsks at him, hoping to annoy him into making a mistake. "That isn't very nice."

It works. Suddenly the man's running at him and Danny grins, whipping his bar stool from behind his back in one smooth motion and catching the guy in the stomach with it. He goes down instantly and then it's all hell breaking loose inside the bar.

Curses fly like bullets and Danny dodges someone's fist, catches someone in the jaw, and has time to generate a shimmering shield around Cujo, who's currently still cowering just under the counter, before someone's shot hits him. The display of his superior shield brings about another round of hissed cuss words from the bounty hunters. Poor sods.

Danny isn't really one to show off. He actually hates using his powers in front of humans. But in the case of bounty hunters, he makes an exception. The look of frustration on their faces when they realize just how outmatched they are warms his heart. He loves knowing that they'll never know _how _or _why._

But there are still five of him and one of them, and he realizes that sooner or later that as inferior as they are to his own thermos, _someone's_ net is going to snare Cujo soon. So reluctantly, he reaches into his jacket and pulls out the object Valerie was gushing about just minutes ago.

"Sorry, bud," he whispers as the small cylindrical device activates, tiny blue lights running up the side as it charges up. It sends out a flare, a flash of light, and suddenly Cujo is gone.

And then one of the men is grabbing his shoulders again. "Oh, so it's the infamous _Phantom_ then," he spits, speckles of saliva hitting Danny's face, who wrinkles his nose in disgust. "Should've known it was you." He chuckles, sending more spittle flying at Danny's face. Fucking gross, dude. "We've all been just dyin' to meet you."

Danny's just over six feet, but he has to crane his neck to smirk up at this guy. He tucks his hands in his pockets nonchalantly and says, "Want an autograph?"

The man gives his shoulders a violent shake and growls, "I'd watch your smart mouth if I were you."

"Rick!" The man looks over his shoulder quickly and Danny glances around his bicep, to see it was Valerie who had spoken. "This is not the time or place, you Neanderthal."

Danny suddenly notices the bartender, who currently has the landline phone in his hands, which are shaking. He's willing to bet everything he owns that he's dialed 911.

The hunter digging his fat fingers into Danny's shoulders growls and shoves him away. "You'd better watch your back too," he hisses as he walks away. All the men shove past him roughly on their way to the door.

Danny tucks his device, the one he affectionately calls his _thermos_ because of the similarity in shape, back into his jacket.

"Sorry for the ruckus," he calls out, but the bartender cowers further into the corner. Danny sighs and leaves his money on the counter, with an extra tip for the poor guy's eminent therapy session.

As he pushes through the front door into the brisk night air, he feels it again. The air's more alive outside than in the stuffy bar. He wonders if he's close to the portal. It could be anywhere. But it must be very nearby. The cold electricity colors every breath of air.

"Hey, wait!"

Danny rolls his eyes and keeps walking, digging his potato chips back out of his pack.

She comes up even with him easily. "I can't decide whether to apologize to you about those jerks, or to apologize to them about you. What the hell? Why couldn't you just let them catch that one? I mean, you're after the _big_ bounty anyway, aren't you?"

Danny glares over at her. "No," he says through a mouthful of chips. "I'm not after a bounty, I'm after a ghost. There's a difference."

"No there's not. Not when you're a bounty hu–"

"I'm not a bounty hunter." God, how many times does he have to tell everyone he i_sn't a bounty hunter._

She narrows her eyes at him. He wonders if he could lose her if he just takes off running until he can find a place to go invisible. But something tells him she'd have no trouble keeping up.

"No…" she says slowly. "You really aren't, are you?"

He cocks a finger at her like a kid playing cowboy and winks. "Now you're getting it." He points his bag of chips toward her, raising an eyebrow. She declines, looking at him as if he's lost it.

"You know that's the real reason they all hate you, right?"

Danny shrugs and presses the "walk" button at the intersection, waiting for the light to change so he can cross. He knows perfectly well why all the bounty hunters hate him. "It's because I beat you guys to it more often than not."

"Well yeah," she admits as she follows him across the street. "But it's also because you _never_ collect on the freaking bounties! You don't claim the government issued bounties, and you don't turn them into any of the private organizations as far as we know, or even any of the private investors. What the hell do you _do _with them? Why would you even catch ghosts if not to collect on the bounties?"

Danny shrugs, searching around the bottom of his bag for the smaller crumbs. "For fun?" he tries. He nearly laughs aloud at her dubious expression, and in the momentary distraction he trips on the curb an falls flat on his face.

He ignores her hand and pushes himself up, chuckling and making sure he didn't break any of his tech.

"You need a ride back to wherever you're staying?" she asks, her voice suddenly sweet instead of icy.

"Thanks, but no," he scoffs.

She raises her eyebrows condescendingly, hands on her hips. "You sure about that? You try and walk there yourself and you're probably just gonna stumble halfway there and pass out in an alley."

This causes him to pause. "Now why the hell would you assume _that?"_

She stares at him incredulously. "You're drunk off your ass! You just fell flat on your face!"

"I'm not drunk, I'm just a klutz."

"Not drunk my _ass_. I've watched you drink more than ten shots since you walked into the Black Rabbit half an hour ago."

"Read my lips, _Val_. I am sober. I wouldn't be drunk if I - _ccghk," _and he pushes his thumb toward his forearm in a gruesome representation, "put that vodka in a needle and squeezed it straight into my veins."

Valerie is unimpressed. When she continues her voice drips with sarcasm. "Okay _hot shot_, so if you don't _get drunk_ then why would you pay for all that alcohol in the first place?"

"I like the taste." The corner of his mouth twitches upward and his pinpoint pupils find hers again. "It stings."

When they pass an alley Danny steps into it, and Valerie pauses uncertainly at the edge of it. "Um, where are you going?"

He ignores her and pulls out his thermos. He knows from personal experience what an uncomfortable place it is to occupy, so he's not keeping Cujo in here a second longer than he has to. It lights up for the second time that night, and after a flash of bright light suddenly a small semi-transparent, pint sized dog is yapping at his ankles, tail wagging frantically.

"What the hell are you doing?" Valerie hissing. "You just caught that thing!"

Danny shrugs and kneels, rubbing his hand on Cujo's head. The dog immediately sits, his tail wagging so hard it dips through the asphalt. "And now I un-caught him."

"Dear god, you're crazy. Is this what you do with _all _the ghosts you capture?!"

Danny won't look at her still, hoping maybe she'll vanish if he wishes hard enough. "Nope, just this one."

As he returns to the edge of the alley Cujo follows closely, snapping at the laces of his boots.

"Don't even think about capturing him," Danny warns as Valerie continues to follow him, keeping a wide berth between herself and Cujo. "You know I'd outmatch you in a heartbeat, so don't even bother."

"But… why?" she says numbly. "Why let a ghost roam free?"

Danny scowls at her. "In case you haven't noticed, he's only a class-one. He used to be a class-three."

"What? How did that happen?"

"If people took more time to study ghosts and less time to hunt them, they'd realize class-threes are fairly easy to neutralize. You just have to find out what their unfinished business is and finish it. Then they move on."

Valerie puts her hands on her hips again and stops short, still staring at the ghost dog running circles around Danny's feet. "If that's so, then why didn't this one move on?"

"Extenuating circumstances. Unforeseeable reattachment to a different object of obsession."

"But that.. wait," he hears her steps quicken as she runs to catch up with him again. "How can that even happen? What did he attach himself to?"

Danny realizes faintly as he says it that he's never told anyone he just met this much before. "Me." Whatever. He'll probably never see her again after he skips town anyway. That's how it always goes.

"_You?"_

"Me," he repeats firmly. The silence is punctuated with more faint barks, eerie and filtered, as if through an old fashioned walkie-talkie.

"Phan.." When he glares she switches quickly to, "Danny. I don't really get you, or your style, but maybe we could team up at least while we're in the same town after the same ghost. What do you say?"

"No," Danny says, without even considering it.

"Sheesh, hear me out first!" she snaps, crossing her arms again. "Those other guys back there really have it out for you, you know. Bounty hunters _hate _you. Last time I saw any of them they were hell bent on finding out what the deal was with you. They're all sick of you beating them to the punch. No one knows how the hell you get there first almost every time. I mean it's almost like you _know_ where the next ghost is gonna turn up. You listening to me, Danny?"

Danny sighs and shakes the almost empty chip bag. Only crumbs in there now, and that scrap of paper with a phone number on it. "No," he says simply. "I don't need and don't want to work with anyone."

"Oh don't give me the 'loner' attitude. You need someone to watch your back, with those guys out for your blood. They're not afraid to actually _hurt _you, y'know. You don't know these guys like I do. They're tired of you hogging up their livings."

"You just want to watch me in action," he says to her with a smirk, "So you can steal all my _moooves."_

Valerie snorts, but he knows he's caught her. She just wants to see all his infamous magic tricks, the ones that have the hunters all so mystified. His 'technology.' Not the thermos.. his other technology. He wonders what she'd think if he told her it isn't technology. _It's natural ability, babe._

"Tell me you'll think about it, at least."

"Yeah sure, whatever." Whatever it takes to get her off of his back.

"Can I have your number or something? Way to keep in touch in case you change your mind?" she asks hopefully, and Danny pauses mid-step.

"Sure," he says wryly, and reaches into the chip bag, pulling out the little piece of paper. He salutes to her as she stares dumbfounded at it and uses the moment to slip away around the next alley corner. By the time she turns it to come after him he's already invisible.

Valerie checks behind her, then back into the nearly empty alleyway, down the tall dirty brick walls, and her head tips to the side, blinking slowly at Cujo as if she's suddenly lost. Cujo's running small circles in the darkness. To any onlooker it would seem as if he were alone, but Danny reaches down and scratches Cujo's ears once more before slipping through the brick wall.

* * *

Oh yeah! Nearly forgot to mention. This goes on the headcanon that Danny's unnaffected by alcohol due to his ability to heal so fast. His system digests the alcohol too quickly to get drunk. How sad.

Also, I know there are some loose ends/questions this leaves unanswered, but that stuff will be answered if/when I continue this. :)


End file.
